gratulerer med dagen Edvard

I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – 

suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, 

feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – 

there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – 

my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – 

and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

~ Edvard Munch 

from his diary Jan. 22, 1892

He paints, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all he paints. For this reason Munch's pictures are as a rule "not complete", as people are so delighted to discover for themselves. Oh, yes, they are complete. His complete handiwork. Art is complete once the artist has really said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Munch has over painters of the other generation, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else.

~ Christian Krohg

a friend of Munch

Munch 1933