Concept - Folio Critique # 1

Looking at Edward Munch’s “The Dead Mother,” the person viewing the painting is brought too a depressing room. There is a burnt orange colored floor and a bed which is colored with white, blue, and a small bit of reddish orange which is applied in a smoky shaded effect and the back wall is a mixture of shades of blues and grays. The room is somewhat dark and the mood is very dark, sad, and depressing. In the foreground, there is a young child. The young girl has short blonde hair with blue eyes. She has a light blue dress on over a white shirt and has black tights on. Her hands cover her ears, like she is trying to block out some kinds of noise. In the background there is a woman, who is her mother, who is still and motionless in the bed behind the young girl. The mother’s hair is black and her eyes open like she was looking at something before she died.

The young girl in the foreground is the focal point of Munch’s painting. The viewer’s eyes see that she is very young and innocent. As stated above she has short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, which when stared into, the viewer can see the subtle worry that is in her eyes. The artist creates an outline, so to speak, around her which is actually the shadow cast by the girl, which draws in the viewer to the girl, because it helps to emphasize the small girl’s large presence in the picture. The background with the deceased mother in her bed helps to balance out the picture. Since the mother is located on the right in contrast to the young girl slightly positioned to the left, the image balances out just enough, so that there is equality, but the strong presence of the young girl in the front is still predominant over the rest of the images painted into the masterpiece by Munch. The young child putting her hands over her ears could mean something different to every observer in that the young girl could be blocking out noise, blocking out her own thoughts, or somehow just trying to stop her pain anyway she can.

This artwork is open to as many interpretations of narratives as the viewer can think up. One of them a viewer could imagine would be as they enter the room they smell, something strange. The room is dark and dreary, and could depress even the happiest of people. He/she sees the young girl standing there with her hands over her ears. The worry in her eyes says that she is scared and doesn’t know what to do, she just wants it all to stop, and she wants her mother back. She tries to stop all her thoughts and all the noise by blocking her ears hoping all that has happened will go away and everything will be back to how it was before. The pain inside her that is eating away at her, the viewer can’t help but feel hurt inside. The viewer then knows the unusual smell has come from the lifeless women behind the girl. The viewer sees that women was staring out at the world before she died, and now is most likely looking down at the world feeling the pain of her daughter who she left behind. Overall, Munch creates a story that many people never hope to experience as a young child, or anytime during their lifetime.