Edvard Munch

EDVARD MUNCH'S ART ON BOARD VIKING SUN

By Anthony Dennis, Editor of Traveller The full version of this article originally appeared in the weekly Traveller liftout in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. The Viking Sun is a true cultural flagship. Outside of Oslo, the Norwegian capital, the ship's owner, Viking Cruises, in a serious nod to its Nordic heritage, owns the largest collection of Munch works.

All of the 35 works adorn the walls of vessels such as the Viking Sun, one of six ultra-modern ocean-going ships in the Viking fleet. Viking's art collection, complementing the restrained, lightfilled and blond-timbered Nordic-style ship interiors, also includes lauded paintings by Norway's 81-year-old Queen Sonja, once the subject of an Andy Warhol lithograph.

On my circuits around Viking Sun's salubrious decks, it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the works of the expressionist Munch that most intrigue and inspire. I soon learn that Norway's most celebrated artist first

24

VIKING CRUISES

vikingcruises.com

25

took up the brush aged 12, dedicating the rest of what's been described as a nomadic, turbulent and bohemian life to art.

Impressive as it is, Viking's Munch collection pales compared with the painter's own output which saw him, over six decades until his death in 1944, create more than 2000 paintings and tens of thousands of prints.

Aside from the seven original Munch works hanging aboard Viking Sun, including the sensual, perhaps suitably named 1896 lithograph On the Waves of Love, Viking has secured digital rights to the entire collection of the artist's work via a partnership with Olso's venerable Munch Museum.

Each night on a giant screen in Viking Sun's central atrium, a thematic presentation entitled "Munch Moments" showcases a selection of the painter's works, including self-portraits and a cameo by The Scream. The presentation is accompanied in part by a musical recital which includes works by another notable Norwegian, the 19th-century composer Edvard Grieg.

A confronting swirling motif emblematic of the angst that can suddenly overwhelm the human condition — even in a part of the world known for its phlegmatic natives — The Scream actually consists of four versions painted between 1893 and 1910. It was perfectly described in a verse

by Munch in his own diary, with the entry referring to a setting-sun "blood red" sky that left the artist "trembling with anxiety" resulting in "an infinite scream passing through nature".

THE SICK CHILD

26

THE SUN

THE KISS

VIKING CRUISES

vikingcruises.com.au

Fortunately, after five indulgent days of my passage through the watery nature of the vast Pacific, I disembark utterly angst free and fully enlightened about the life and work of the master Munch from a world away, Norway.

27