"In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color"
About this Quote
Munch isn’t name-dropping Michelangelo and Rembrandt to borrow grandeur; he’s staking a claim for what kind of seeing he believes matters. “In common with” is a quiet provocation, positioning him against the easy pleasure of color as decoration and against the late-19th-century seductions of surface. By the time Munch is working, modern painting is increasingly split between sensation (color, atmosphere, optical truth) and structure (drawing, contour, psychological force). He chooses structure, but not as academic obedience. He chooses it as a diagnostic tool.
The phrase “the line, its rise and fall” turns drawing into a kind of pulse reading. Line becomes tempo, not outline: a wavering perimeter that can describe anxiety, desire, dread, fatigue. It’s hard not to hear The Scream in that rhythm - not just the famous figure, but the way the world itself bends, ripples, and pitches, as if the landscape has nerves. Color in Munch can be loud, even acidic, but he’s telling you it’s secondary to the skeletal motion underneath. If the line works, the feeling lands.
Invoking Michelangelo and Rembrandt is also strategic because they represent different kinds of mastery: Michelangelo’s muscular, sculptural draftsmanship; Rembrandt’s searching, humane economy. Munch threads that lineage into Expressionism before it has a formal banner, arguing that modern emotional realism isn’t about mimicking light. It’s about building a contour strong enough to carry a psyche.
The phrase “the line, its rise and fall” turns drawing into a kind of pulse reading. Line becomes tempo, not outline: a wavering perimeter that can describe anxiety, desire, dread, fatigue. It’s hard not to hear The Scream in that rhythm - not just the famous figure, but the way the world itself bends, ripples, and pitches, as if the landscape has nerves. Color in Munch can be loud, even acidic, but he’s telling you it’s secondary to the skeletal motion underneath. If the line works, the feeling lands.
Invoking Michelangelo and Rembrandt is also strategic because they represent different kinds of mastery: Michelangelo’s muscular, sculptural draftsmanship; Rembrandt’s searching, humane economy. Munch threads that lineage into Expressionism before it has a formal banner, arguing that modern emotional realism isn’t about mimicking light. It’s about building a contour strong enough to carry a psyche.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|---|
| Source | Attributed on Wikiquote: "In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color." — Edvard Munch |
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