Puberty (Munch)

Puberty (Norwegian: Pubertet) is an 1894–95 painting created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Puberty has associations with both symbolism and expressionism, the former a movement from which Munch emerged, and the latter a movement in which Munch was pivotal. It is part of an informal series or cycle of paintings, prints, and images known as The Frieze of Life, that Munch created in the 1890s, although he often revisited and explored themes and images from the series throughout his career. The painting was also done as a lithograph and an etching by Munch.

Inspiration

Rops' illustration

Whenever he was questioned on the subject, Munch maintained he had not been influenced by the work of the Belgium artist and illustrator Félicien Rops, specifically the etching Le Plus Bel Amour De Don Juan [Don Juan's Greatest Love], which was published as an illustration in the second edition of Jules Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly's book Les Diaboliques in 1882 (based on an earlier 1879 pencil drawing).) However, art critics and historians have consistently noted the similarities; beginning with Przybyszewski (1894) the first publication devoted to Munch.

Munch himself claimed that his 1894–95 painting was a copy of an earlier painting he first made in 1885 or 1886 and "that this earlier version had been lost in a studio fire".

Norwegian art historian Arne Eggum, in commentary published by The Masterworks of Edvard Munch regarding Munch's Puberty, said that the images were so similar, that Munch found it necessary to claim he did not wish to replicate Félicien Rops' 1886 Le Plus Bel Amour De Don Juan. [Although Eggum was in error; the 2nd ed. of Les Diaboliques with Rops etching, was published in 1882, not 1886].

Sexual depression

In the late 1880s and into the mid-1890s, Munch, in his mid-twenties, had begun to create his series of Puberty pieces.