Girl and Death by Edvard Munch, 1894

Edvard Munch and his constant reminder of death has a special place in the ocean of art, which lurks deep beneath where no pessimism can reach. I am talking about the man who created The Scream. His traumatic masterpieces of symbolism and expressionism grips its viewers unlike anything. His paintings show everyday tragedy, jealousy,anxiety and mental illness. But right now i want to draw your attention towards this painting. It seems rather simple at first sight, a girl embracing death which is shown as a skeleton. But i always try to find,in a piece of art, some things that i am missing in my life. I want to talk about those things and in the meantime, try to shine some light on how this paiting brings it to surface. Girl here represents love . A naked women evokes a sort of desire but here it tries to draw a far more complex response than any pornographic imagery. It represents, like many ancient greek art, innocence and purity of mind that is rather a lot to ask from homo sapiens. The girl is seen embracing a skeleton. It makes you think about love and death instantly. We are so afraid of death and uncertainity, loss and pain, that we seek safety and comfort in love, attempting to make it more permanent than it actually is. The world tries to tell us that we will never lose love, through fairy tales of couples of who “lived happily ever after”. This idea stifles the very aspects of love that enabled it to thrive in the first place— uncertainty, unpredictability, excitement, and passion. Without these key ingredients, complacency and ingratitude are likely to grow in its stead. We try to manipulate love according to our needs for safety and security, we ignore the possibility of any pain and suffering. I despise this kind of superficial connection. The acknowledgement that love is transient like life and as vulnerable as death will give love what it needs to thrive. The purity and sensuality of naked girl represents this love. She has come to terms with this dark truth and embraces love with death in mind. Birth and love lead to oblivion one day, and ignoring it will do us more harm than good.

Instead of trying to rant more on this issue, I will leave you with a quote from Abraham Maslow,

“The confrontation with death—and the reprieve from it—makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful, that I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, to let myself be overwhelmed by it…. Death and its ever-present possibility makes love, passionate love more possible.”