Edvard Munch – Inger in Black and Violet

Inger in Black and Violet

Inger in Black and Violet by Edvard Munch is an oil painting on canvas from 1892, held under inventory number NG.M.00499 by the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo. The original measures 122.5 x 172.5 cm. The scene is upright and shows a young woman in a dark floor-length dress standing alone in front of a bare wall.

The figure stands straight, turned towards the viewer, filling the whole height of the canvas. No feet show beneath the dress; the skirt widens towards the ground into a soft bell shape and meets the red-brown floor. Nothing else occupies the room: no furniture, no window, no wall corner.

The face is the most fully worked part of the scene. The skin is pale, yellowish and slightly green, with cool shadows beside the nose and under the cheekbones. The eyes are grey-blue and look straight out, the mouth small and closed, the expression composed and a little severe.

The hair is dark brown, parted down the middle and drawn smoothly back over the ears. A warmer reddish stroke runs along the line of the parting; it is the only bright thing in the whole head and gives the dark mass of hair its shape.

The dress is very dark, blue-black, closing at the neck in a high collar. An oval cameo sits at the throat, pale cream and pink with a light rim, the only ornament in the picture. The shoulders are puffed into the wide sleeves of the period, narrowing towards the wrist.

Small strokes of rose and salmon are scattered across the whole dress, with a few pale grey-blue ones among them. They are not a pattern and do not repeat in order; they are laid on singly, wet into wet, and they bring the dark cloth to life without breaking it up.

The hands are loosely clasped in front of the waist, one over the other. They are painted broadly, in warm pink and ochre flesh with grey-green shadows, with no detail in the fingers. These two pale patches and the face are the only warm places on an otherwise dark figure.

The wall behind her is blue-grey, painted with visible vertical and circling strokes that never blend. The floor is red-brown and meets the wall high behind the figure, so the scene falls into two broad bands of colour. At the lower left the signature E. Munch 1892 is written in dark red.

The paint is dry and thin. The strokes are visible, the weave of the canvas shows through the colour in places, and there are almost no transitions. The scene is built from planes and strokes rather than from shading, which is unusually open for so large an upright portrait.

The sitter is Inger Munch, the painter’s younger sister, who modelled for him more than once. The portrait is not a commission and does not flatter; it is the likeness of someone from the household, painted without softening, a year before the works he is best known for.

The composition rests on a single dark upright in a light field. The figure is heavy and closed, the background empty and broadly painted; the pale face and hands make three light points that lead the eye down and back. This emptiness makes the picture both calm and tense.

Our version is hand-painted in oils on canvas, stroke by stroke, and never printed. Because each canvas is made for the order, no two match exactly; small differences are the mark of a human hand, not a fault. The hardest parts are the face, built from a few cool strokes, and the scattered rose marks, which must stay sparse.

The format is upright and large and the colours cool, so the painting needs space around it. It works well in a hall, a bedroom or beside a staircase, where it is seen from a distance. Keep the wall behind it light and plain; on a dark wall the dress merges into it. Hang it with the face at eye level, in even light.

Eight sizes are available from 50 x 70 cm to 150 x 205 cm, as well as a custom size; every canvas can be ordered framed or unframed. More of the painter’s work is in the Edvard Munch gallery, and we write about his life and work on the Edvard Munch blog.