Madonna - Edvard Munch
Madonna, a painting by Edvard Munch created in 1854, is a commonly thought of as a portrayal of the Virgin Mary. It is thought that he painted her in a way to approach the topic of sexuality and feminity in a way that also acknowledges the crossover between reality and expectations of a woman, removing the role they are expected to play. The painting speaks volumes of two things being able to exist at the same time, coexisting, and that the expectations over women, such as fertility and being sexually active, would be ultimately her choice. The most common interpretation of Madonna is this: that a study of sensuality in this piece can exist and does exist beside the very indepence women are born with, and will die with too. For a painting created in the middle of the 1800's, it is a very bold and outspoken piece.
Munch was born in Norway, December 12th in 1863 and received artistic training from Julius Middlethun and Christian Krogh at the the Royal School of Art and Design in Oslo. He was taught from a form of realism, but eventually developed his own style inspired by French impressionists. His life came to an end in 1944, January 23 at the age of 80. Most of his paintings, though some are scattered, are largely in the Munch Museum in Oslo, where many adaptations of this painting still reside.
The reason I was so drawn to this piece is because of Munch, since my favorite poem is written by him. My plan was to get a slab of clay, slowly shape it into the stretched look I ended up with, shape her body in a 3 dimensional shape over top, dry her until she was bone dry, glaze her, and then fire. My experience with this piece required a lot of trial and error. I had a vision pretty early on for the base that I sculpted her on to bend with the shape of her body instead of remaining kind of stiff, trying to impersonate water. I was pretty satisfied with how the overall shape of her turned out, but probably would've spent more time on the anatomy if I provided myself more time. I definitely postponed this until the very last minute, I wont lie, and in doing so, I rushed through glazing and didn't realize that I used the wrong glaze, so I wasn't able to fire her, which was obviously a huge oversight for me and is very dissapointing. Although a bunch of things went wrong, I think I'm happy with the way she turned out.
