Description
Moonlight
Moonlight by Edvard Munch is an oil painting on canvas of 1895 that carries inventory number NG.M.02815 at the National Museum (Nasjonalmuseet) in Oslo. It measures 110 x 93 cm and shows a night shore: a pale moon stands high in the sky and its reflection falls on completely still water as a long, straight column of light. Dark tree trunks frame the scene at the left and the right, a heavy dark cloud drags across the sky, and along the shore below a band of pale rounded stones catches the light. This is the version our hand-painted reproduction follows.
The scene is strongly simplified: sky, sea and shore are reduced to broad horizontal bands, and the trunks are the only verticals besides the moon’s reflection. That reflection is a recurring element in Munch’s northern summer nights and appears in others of his shore motifs as well. The paint layer is thin and smooth, without worked-up texture, so that the column of light reads as though cut into the water.
Worth saying for the avoidance of doubt: the same museum holds a second painting titled Moonlight under inventory number NG.M.01914, and a work called Moonlight by the Mediterranean under NG.M.00842. Our source is the 1895 canvas NG.M.02815 and not either of the other two.
Our reproduction is hand-painted throughout in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke and always to order; it is not a print. Because every canvas is made individually, tones and strokes differ slightly from one copy to the next.
The painting is quiet and nearly abstract, so it works well in a bedroom, a bathroom or a calm corner of a living room. Its bluish greens and silvers sit with light wood, white walls and metal; because the motif is built from still horizontal bands, it stays restful even in a small room and does not need much wall around it.
It is available in ten sizes, from a smaller horizontal format to a large canvas, and we can also make it to a size you specify. Other works by the same artist are among the paintings of Edvard Munch, and his life and work are covered in the biography of Edvard Munch.
| Year: | 1895 |
| Original size: | 110 cm x 93 cm |
| Style: | Symbolism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located at: | National Museum (Nasjonalmuseet), Oslo |
