And a masculine soul is
his. I can still recall my impressions on seeing one of his early
lithographs entitled, Geschrei. As far as America is concerned, Edvard
Munch was discovered by Vance Thompson, who wrote an appreciation of
the Norwegian painter, then a resident of Berlin, in the pages of
_M'lle New York_ (since gathered to her forefathers). The "cry" of the
picture is supposed to be the "infinite cry of nature" as felt by an
odd-looking individual who stands on a long bridge traversing an
estuary in some Norwegian harbour. The sky is barred by flaming
clouds, two enigmatic men move in the middle distance. To-day the
human with the distorted skull who holds hands to his ears and with
staring eyes opens wide a foolish mouth looks more like a man
overtaken by seasickness than a poet mastered by cosmic emotion.

In 1901 I visited Munich and at the Secession exhibition at the Glass
Palace I saw a room full of Munches. It was nicknamed the Chamber of
Horrors, and the laughter and exclamations of disgust indulged in by
visitors recalled the history of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe and the
treatment accorded it by Parisians (an incident utilised by Zola in
L'Oeuvre). But nowadays, in company with the Neo-Impressionists, the
Lampost Impressionists, Cubists, and Futurists, Munch might seem tame,
conventional; nevertheless he was years ahead of the new crowd in
painting big blocks of colour, juxtaposed, not as the early
Impressionists juxtaposed their strokes of complementary colour to
gain synthesis by dissociation of tonalities, but by obvious discords
thus achieve a brutal optical impression.

His landscapes were those of a visionary in an Arcadia where the ugly
is elevated to the tragic. Tragic, too, were his representations of
his fellow men. Such every-day incidents as a funeral became
transfigured in the sardonic humour of this pessimist. No one had such
a quick eye in detecting the mean souls of interested mourners at the
interment of a relative. I possess an original signed lithograph
called, The Curious Ones, which shows a procession returning afoot
from a funeral. Daumier, himself, could not beat the variety of
expressions shown in this print. The silk hat (and Goya was the first
among modern artists to prove its value as a motive) plays a role in
the Munch plates. His death-room scenes are unapproachable in seizing
the fleeting atmosphere of the last hour. The fear of death, the very
fear of fear, Maeterlinck h