Existential crisis. The existential horror of existence: review of “The Melancholy of Angels” (2009) Existential problems of man

Despite the mystery of existence, many of us are able to cope with our lives and avoid debilitating feelings of despair, personal failure and overall meaninglessness. But from time to time we are pulled out of our self-satisfaction and forced to re-evaluate our lives. Here's what you need to know about existential crises and how to deal with them.

The American Psychiatric Association did not include a description of such a condition as an “existential crisis” in DSM -5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual mental disorders- 5).Nevertheless, psychologists and psychotherapists are quite familiar with it.They describe this condition as “existential anxiety.”

The shock of being in this world

An existential crisis can manifest itself in many forms, but its fundamental aspect is deep doubt and a feeling of being unsettled about oneself, one's very essence and one's significance in the world.

“An existential crisis is often relational in nature, meaning people's relationship to everything and everyone around them is called into question,” saysJason Winkler) , a Toronto-based psychotherapist who specializes in this area. “Being-in-the-world is carefully considered in an existential crisis, and the questions that arise are often unanswered. Usually the person feels completely out of touch, existentially alone and confused - even despite many loving friends and family, successful career and professional reputation, material wealth and religious/spiritual faith.”

Winkler says that an existential crisis is pervasive and can permeate every aspect of life. It manifests itself in many different ways, including a loss of meaning, a feeling of deep disconnection from loved ones, despair and horror of existence (for example, a lot of thinking “what-is-the-point-of-this?”), and preoccupation with worries about big life issues, for example: Why am I here? Do I even matter? What is my place in the Universe?

Psychotherapist Catherine King (Katharine King), also from Toronto, believes that existential anxiety manifests itself differently in people depending on their social status.

“For example, both aging people and people who frequently encounter death (for example, in the family line or through work) may experience increased existential anxiety in relation to death, the so-called ‘fear of death,’” she said in an interview io 9. Some of King's clients experience a morbid preoccupation with the fear of death.

“These clients are struggling with deeply frightening questions that many of us manage to push out of our daily thoughts,” says King. “In therapy, they may ask questions such as: Why live our lives fully if we are going to die anyway? What will be left of me in the world when I die? Will I be remembered? How exactly?"

For these clients, the fear of death can be experienced as an intense terror that overwhelms them after stress or loss. It is not just a fact of existence flickering in the background of their consciousness. This is a pressing burden.

But, as King notes, fear of death can arise unexpectedly in connection with other losses. Some people with death anxiety may find themselves in dilemmas regarding all attachments and losses. They may wonder why dare to love if there is always a risk of the relationship ending. Moreover, serious life changes can cause terror in people prone to this type of fear.

Grueling freedom and choice

Existential guilt is also worth considering as an integral part of the anxiety of life, sometimes called “ontological guilt.” This type of guilt causes deeply disturbing feelings related to the fact that a person is not living up to his potential or has freedom that he is not using.

“Freedom itself can become a source of stress and anxiety—when a person feels a responsibility to make good use of his freedom, but he is paralyzed in his choices and fails to act purposefully,” Winkler noted in an interview with io 9. “What is called ‘depression and anxiety’ often has an ontological/existential basis rather than a biological one.”

King has noticed a particular existential direction in her practice with young clients. Indeed, young people are more actively making decisions that determine the general course of their lives, and this leads some of them into a stupor. This is compounded by factors such as online culture, seismic changes in the economy and the concomitant rise of the so-called ‘innovation economy’ with an increase in temporary and precarious jobs. King believes that, more than ever, young people are feeling the pressure to be “initiative” and take sole responsibility for what becomes of their lives.

“Intellectually, we understand that some of life's apparent 'choices' are illusory or unimportant,” notes King. “However, the younger generation is constantly changing their professions or adding new ones and cultivating (numerous) online personalities, and, paradoxically, all this ‘choice’ causes a lot of stress - a constant feeling of being in a difficult situation.”

Existential Anxiety Casts a Wide Net

Both Winkler and King agree that almost anyone can feel existential anxiety.

( Drawing: " On threshold eternity(Old Man in Sorrow On the Threshold of Eternity)",Vincent Wang Gog (1890))

“I definitely don't think there are any groups of people who are more susceptible to existential anxiety,” King states. “As with everything related to mental health, some groups of the population (youth, women) are more likely to use psychological help, but it is more likely because they are more likely to encounter such services and also feel more supported by society when they seek help.”

King believes that existential questions can concern any human being, regardless of nationality, socioeconomic status, gender, age, sexuality, etc.

“We are literally talking about the human condition; about the immutable aspects of our existence, including death and the dilemma of freedom and limitations,” she explained io 9. “No one can escape these painful parts of the human experience, although we certainly differ in the degree to which we are aware of them or willing to think about them.”

Winkler agrees with King, but believes that some people may be psychologically predisposed to an existential crisis.

“Sometimes I believe that there is mysterious power- I don't even know what to call it - defining an 'existential orientation' (much like sexual orientation, gender identity, or even a personality 'type'), due to which certain people are naturally more inclined to deeply question existence and react emotionally to them, take it to heart,” he clarifies. “It's true, I believe that existential crisis most often occurs in mid-life (mid 30s to mid 50s), but I have seen it in people of all ages, even children.”

Search for meaning

Existential anxiety and a sense of meaning are inextricably intertwined. Work by Tatiana Schnell from the University of Innsbruck( And) shows that a sense of meaning can have significant influence on our well-being and level of happiness. Five years ago, Schnell developed a program for reflecting existential attitudes, a matrix of four categories that can be summarized as follows:

• Meaningfulness: high level meaningfulness and a low level of crisis of meaning.


• Crisis of meaning: low level of meaningfulness and high level of crisis of meaning.


• Existential indifference : low level of meaningfulness and low level of crisis of meaning.


• Existential conflict : high level of meaningfulness and high level of crisis of meaning.

Thus, according to the first category, some people have a high level of sense of meaning in life, but this does not bother them. In contrast, people in the “existential conflict” category also experience a high level of sense of meaning in life, but are unsuccessful in trying to identify it or make sense of the world. Such a conflict can cause an unambiguous, deeply personal crisis.

For better understanding where people stand in relation to these categories, Schnell conducted a study of more than 600 German participants. The results showed that 61% of people showed meaningfulness, 35% had existential indifference, and 4% had a crisis of meaning.

IN recent study Bruno Damasio ) and Sylvia Koller ( Sí lviaKoller ) from the Complutense University of Madrid achieved similar results. In a survey of more than 3,000 Brazilians, researchers found 80.7% meaningfulness, 9.6% existential indifference, 5.7% crisis of meaning, and 4% existential conflict. This means that 120 of the 3,034 people surveyed felt a high level of meaning and at the same time a crisis of meaning. Cultural, religious and socioeconomic factors may help explain some of the differences between participants from Germany and Brazil, but it is interesting to note that similar proportions of people in both countries experience existential conflict.

In both studies, meaningfulness correlates positively with life satisfaction, happiness, optimism, and hope, while crisis of meaning correlates negatively with these indicators. The two unusual categories of indifference and conflict were similar on these measures, although indifferent individuals showed higher levels of life satisfaction, happiness, and self-esteem than individuals in existential conflict.

Damasio and Koller's studies also looked atsearchthe meaning of life and its connection with the four above-mentioned groups. Groups of people actively searching for the meaning of life look like this:

• Conflict: 28.55%


• A crisis: 24.95%


• Meaningfulness: 23.15%


• Indifference: 20.34%

Thus, being in conflict leads to a greater search for meaning in life than simply going through a crisis (although with a slight difference). Not surprisingly, the researchers also found that indifference leads to less searching.

Interestingly, an intensified search for the meaning of life correlates with more low level satisfaction with life, and a lower level of subjective happiness, in comparison with an average and low level of search for the meaning of life. And, as researchers note in their works, “personalities who are in a state of existential conflict, but only weakly searching for meaning, show the same level of happiness as individuals in the meaningfulness group.”

This raises serious questions about whether the search for meaning in life is fruitful. Clearly this is not very pleasant; people searching for meaning are either in conflict or in crisis. Moreover, if they are searching, they are most likely unhappy or dissatisfied with something in their life.

Coping with an existential crisis

If the obsession with finding the meaning of life is useless, what should a person do when overwhelmed by the pain of existential horror?

Life is full of them, and it's always hard not to wonder what's on the path you didn't take? ( photo: Nicholas Mutton(Nicholas Mutton/CC 2.o))

As Katherine King shared with me, we often find it difficult to resist the guilt that arises when we don't live our lives as fully as we believe or know we could—and the further along we go life path, the harder it gets.

“Whether quitting smoking after 40, giving up destructive behavior, or leaving a relationship you were unhappy in for decades, or changing careers is inevitable, such changes raise the question of why the person didn’t do this sooner?” - she remarks.

Inspired by workStanford University psychotherapist Irvin Yalom , King advises her clients not only to face the fear of doing something risky or difficult, but also to accept the fact that their lives would have taken a different turn if they had decided to make these changes sooner. She reminds her clients that what is done is in the past and cannot be changed, and that they most likely did the best they could at the time. Having mentioned this, she adds that the future is uncertain and contains new possibilities.

“Simply spoken, these words are unlikely to produce an immediate emotional shift or reduce their existential anxiety,” says King, but “clients need to use therapy to slowly integrate new ways of thinking and feeling on a deeper psychological level while they spend emotional work becoming aware of your fears, accepting your losses, and growing your ability to seize new opportunities.”

At its best, “ existential psychotherapy ” in the Yalom style affirms will, creativity, self-actualization and human potential, while at the same time accepting inevitable limitations and conditions. King tells his clients, especially those under 40, that an awareness of freedom and choice must be balanced with an acceptance of inevitable limitations, as well as an acceptance of risk and uncertainty.

“Despite our best efforts, life often turns out differently than we expected,” she adds. “For younger clients who are paralyzed or overwhelmed with life decisions, this can lead to therapy work focused on being more comfortable with uncertainty, viewing failures as valuable lessons, and valuing the process more than the results.”

Jason Winkler is sure that a good relationship and human contact are a great way for most people to lift their mood and outlook in their personal situation.

“If one person talks to another about their existential worries and receives support and understanding in return, often the level of despair associated with existential isolation is reduced,” he explains, adding that it is important for people to continue to verbalize their thoughts and feelings .

“I believe that the best answers to an existential crisis are to keep looking sensitive, understanding and empathetic listeners, and being passionate about the meaningful activities in life - no matter how 'small' or 'big' they may be - from sitting on a park bench knitting, listening to the wind rustle the leaves in the trees, to volunteering in organizations humanitarian aid, to pleasure family relations with someone special,” adds Winkler. “Finding the determination to get up and get involved in life every day is incredibly important.” George Dvorsky (George Dvorsky)
Translation: ,

Marien Dora shot this film over several years, setting out to concentrate in one large canvas (more than 2.5 hours long) all his ideas, all the themes, to literally embody own world. The picture is devoid of the usual logic and plot and is more focused on images. At the same time, there is a certain plot in the film.

Two men meet two girls at an amusement park, as well as their friend, and then go to big house In the countryside. There they are joined by two more people, an artist and his muse, a disabled girl. It is in the house that the main action of the film will unfold.

Viewers familiar with Dora's previous works will easily see that they were all steps before " The melancholy of angels" Here is the pathetic, disgusting hero of Karsten Frank, as if he had passed from “ Documentary trash", here is the character Zensa Raggi from the short film " Provocation" - just as crazy, angry at the whole world. Dora's documentary sketches of cemeteries in Mexico, the slaughter of a cow in a slaughterhouse (here replaced by a pig) come to life. At the same time, the director creates with unusual freedom. His vibrant visual style goes well with his philosophical content.

Dor's world is strange, uncomfortable, as if straight out of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. At the same time, in terms of philosophy, the ideas of Empedocles, who is repeatedly mentioned, are dominant, teaching that the world is ruled by love and hatred as two opposing forces. Meanwhile, in the fun on the edge of the abyss, in the feast during the plague, one can see the influence of D. A. F. de Sade, especially his book “ 120 days of Sodom».

Dora, with sharp, precise strokes, creates a requiem for a dying world, imprisoned in the abyss of sin. Hell came routinely and without any angelic trumpets. It’s just that people suddenly lost their human appearance and turned into monsters, whose main desire is to experience pleasure until the grave. After all, if there is no God, then there is no meaning in life, and it is very convenient to replace morality with another worldview, for example, the philosophy of the libertines. Or you don’t have to specifically look for an excuse. The world is chaos, and life is finite. Whether a person is alive or dead, nothing will change, as the film repeatedly says.

In space " Melancholies of Angels“God is dead, and people, deprived of divine light, go crazy, each in their own way. The director even turns the aesthetics of ancient tragedy inside out, because his film, built strictly according to the canons of classical art, is not moving towards catharsis at all. Rather, it is a slow but unstoppable movement towards hell. The world is dying literally before our eyes, chaos displaces the logic of existence, and hatred finishes off the last remnants of love.

Despite the director's extreme style, Dora's film does not seem immoral. The director, being a doctor, is accustomed to always tell the truth and make an accurate diagnosis, despite insults, slander and hatred directed at him. He shows the depths of human degradation precisely so that people, seeing hell, remember about heaven. It was not God who turned away from people, but people who turned away from God. Eat, drink, be merry, my soul - these words from an ancient psalm completely describe the content of the film Dora.

What are the angels, whose stone figures the director regularly shows, sad about? And what drives the heroes into a state of insanity? These questions cannot be answered without being familiar with existentialism.

A person, according to existentialist philosophers, is one who is aware of his existence and experiences it. In the process of life, a person is accompanied by fear, what is called existential horror. TO global types fears include fear of death, moral inadequacy, and a sense of the meaninglessness of life. Such fear creates a riot in the cage. A person becomes overwhelmed by rage because he is powerless to change anything. So most of the heroes of Dora experience fear of life, they are frightened by the freedom that lies outside the castle, and it is better to hide in a shell, behind four walls. Braut and Katze, convinced libertines, also experience a pathological hatred of those who are not like them, for example, 17-year-old Bianca, trying to seduce her, defame her, and destroy her personality. It is no coincidence that Dora compares her to an angel, hinting at the natural purity of her thoughts and preparing her for the way of the cross.

Life is suffering. Dora knows how weak a person is and how low he is. But still, it is Dora, and not Buttgereit, who is the religious director. One Catholic scholar rightly divided directors into four types, according to their relationship to God - Buñuel (the absence of God indicates the absence of God), Fellini (the presence of God indicates the absence of God), Bresson (the presence of God indicates the presence of God) and Bergman (the absence of God). God speaks of the presence of God). So Dora, creating a fresco about a world without God, about a man rebelling against the chaos of existence, latently proves that man still yearns for the Creator, for a world without a moral principle will turn into hell. Therefore, the heroes of Dor cannot satisfy their passions in any way, because hell, according to theologians, is characterized by the fact that passions increase many times over for the soul, they literally devour the soul.

If we select cinematic analogues best film Dora, then to the greatest extent he resembles the scandalous " Big grub» Marco Ferreri. Directors are similar. After all, Ferreri is also a doctor, called by his profession to fearlessly make diagnoses. Dora only avoids social criticism and satire, focusing more on the philosophical side. At the same time, Dora is a romantic and fascinated by the perfection of nature. There is hardly a modern avant-garde artist who is more able to convey the mood of a film through the landscape, and even the corpses of animals serve only as a reminder that death certainly follows life. In parallel with von Trier, Dora quotes " Face"Ingmar Bergman, with special love showing a disemboweled fox (only von Trier’s fox also says Bergman’s phrase - “chaos rules the world”). In Dora's world, of course, talking foxes would be superfluous. His world is like the wrong side of ours, a mirror reflection, where a moral apocalypse has set in, and a person suddenly realized the chaos of existence and went crazy.

Of course, Dora is a provocateur, and therefore his cinema is not for everyone, just like the art and Marco Ferreri. And Bergman, needless to say, sometimes aroused no less hatred among adherents of morality and guardians of optimistic tragedies.

Over the years, Dora becomes more and more difficult to film. He had a hard time finding funding for a medical drama." Carcinoma", and the creators of the long-running semi-pornographic work " I love snuff” (and, it must be said, frankly unsuccessful) they did not sell him the rights to a remake, although Dora could have better highlighted the serious themes contained in this extreme avant-garde, clearing it of forced humor.

After " Melancholies of Angels“The director was literally inundated with letters threatening physical harm, after which Dora took a pseudonym and began to appear in public even less. But, having become acquainted with his main job, you come to the conclusion that such a film has the right to exist. Its unhurried rhythm gradually captivates, and the provocative scenes are calculated in advance by the director in order to especially emphasize the depth of the fall, not even of the heroes, but of the entire universe.

Does chaos really rule the world? Is man really such a monster? Why does God still love him, despite the fact that we torture ourselves and each other all our lives? And why do people, even denying his existence, miss God so much?

“Existential crisis” is a typical first world problem: intelligent being freed from the need to constantly solve the most pressing issues of survival, there is enough time to think about the meaning own life, and often come to disappointing conclusions. But before you diagnose yourself with an existential crisis, it is worth learning more about the philosophy of existentialism and the existential psychology that grew out of it.

Existentialism had a huge influence on the culture of the twentieth century, but, remarkably, never existed in its pure form as a separate philosophical movement. Almost none of the philosophers whom we now classify as existentialists indicated their affiliation with this movement - the only exception is the French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, who clearly demonstrated his position in the report “Existentialism is Humanism.” And yet, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Albert Camus, José Ortega y Gasset, Roland Barthes, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger are considered existentialists. There was something in common in the intellectual searches of these thinkers - they all paid special attention to the uniqueness of human existence. The name “existentialism” itself comes from the Latin word existentia - “existence”. However, by “existence”, existentialist philosophers mean not just existence as such, but the individual experience of this existence by a specific person.

A person wants to believe that his life is important, and at the same time, looking at his existence as if from the outside, he suddenly realizes that human existence has neither a given purpose nor objective meaning

This concept was first introduced by the forerunner of the existentialists, the 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who defined it as awareness of a person’s inner existence in the world. A person can gain “existence” through a conscious choice, moving from “inauthentic”, contemplative-sensual and focused on external world existence to comprehend oneself and one’s own uniqueness.

But a person is not always able to realize himself as an “existence” - he is too distracted by everyday worries, momentary pleasures and other external factors. As one of the existentialists, Karl Jaspers, believed, this knowledge comes to him in a special, “borderline” situation - such as a threat to his life, suffering, struggle, defenselessness against the will of chance, a deep sense of guilt. For example, Hamlet’s existential search - “to be or not to be?” - were provoked by the death of his father.

And if at such a critical moment a person begins to be tormented by questions about the meaning of his own existence, to which he cannot give a satisfactory answer, he experiences an existential crisis. A person wants to believe that his life has value, and at the same time, looking at his existence as if from the outside, he suddenly understands that human existence has neither a given purpose nor an objective meaning. Such a discovery can cause deep depression or lead to radical changes in life.

How to approach this issue is a personal matter for everyone. But, as is the case with many people, trying to cope with an existential crisis is the most in a simple way- not through the search for one’s individual truth, but through the acceptance of any ready-made concept, be it a religion, tradition, or simply a certain worldview system.

But since we call this crisis “existential”, one of the possible solutions problems also lie in the field of existentialism. But this philosophy does not provide ready-made answers, emphasizing that a person must first of all focus on himself and his unique inner experience. In this regard, it is somewhat consonant with the concept of existentialism famous phrase from “The Terminator” - “there is no fate except the one we create ourselves.” And to rephrase a little, there is no meaning other than what we define for ourselves. Thus, existentialism gives the life of each person to him in full possession, providing maximum freedom of action. But the flip side of this freedom is responsibility to yourself and the rest of the world. After all, if life has no “original” meaning, its value is manifested precisely in how a person realizes himself, in the choices he makes and the actions he commits. He himself must set individual tasks for himself, relying largely on intuition and self-knowledge, and he himself will evaluate how well he managed to cope with them.

Frankl founded a new method of psychotherapy - logotherapy, aimed at helping a person find the meaning of life. The three main ways to this, the psychologist believed, were creativity, experience life values and conscious acceptance of a certain attitude towards circumstances that we cannot change

Searching for the truth within oneself, without relying on an external “system of coordinates” and realizing the absurdity of existence, is a serious challenge that not everyone is ready for, and that is why existentialism is often called the “philosophy of despair.” And yet, this approach allows you to look at life more creatively in some way. The existential direction in psychology helps with this, helping a person to realize his life and take responsibility for it. The most interesting proponent of this trend is the Austrian psychotherapist, psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl, who was a prisoner of a fascist concentration camp for three years and still managed to overcome the pangs of mental emptiness and hopeless existence. In his works, he talks about the “existential vacuum,” a kind of disease of the twentieth century, an era of change and destruction, when people felt cut off from traditional values ​​and losing their support. Frankl founded a new method of psychotherapy - logotherapy, aimed at helping a person find the meaning of life. The psychologist believed that the three main ways to this are creativity, experiencing life values ​​and consciously accepting a certain attitude towards circumstances that we cannot change.

Frankl also talks about a particular manifestation of an existential crisis - “Sunday neurosis.” This is a depressed state and a feeling of emptiness that people often experience at the end of the work week - as soon as they stop occupied with urgent matters, they begin to feel empty due to the lack of meaning in their life. Perhaps this unfortunate phenomenon largely supports the income of bars on Friday nights.

How to say

Incorrect “Petya was dumped by his girlfriend and now he has an existential crisis.” That's right - “He's depressed.”

Correct: “He emerged from an existential crisis by turning to religion.”

Correct: “Existential crisis is a disease of the era of change.”

If you think that the most unfortunate artist in the world was, say, Vincent Van Gogh, then you know nothing about the biography of Edvard Munch. At least Van Gogh had a normal childhood. And Munch was a boy who did not even hope to live to see mature age. True, he still died a very old man, wealthy and revered. But this did not bring him even a shadow of happiness.

Edvard Munch was the son of Christian Munch, an army doctor who met and married Laura-Katerina Bjolstad while his regiment was stationed in the small Norwegian town of Løten in the 1860s. The eldest children were born there: Sophie in 1862 and Edward in 1863. A year later, the family moved to Christiania (now Oslo), where three more children were born - Andreas, Laura and Inger.

Edvard Munch (standing on the right) with his mother, sisters and brother

Laura-Katerina probably fell ill with tuberculosis before her marriage, and Munch remembered for the rest of his life how she coughed up blood into a handkerchief. She died in 1868 in front of Sophie and Edward. Christian was distinguished by his religiosity even before his death, and now he began to remind his children every day about the proximity of death and eternal damnation. So little Munch was sure that any day he would die and end up in hell. On top of everything else, he was in poor health: at first he was plagued by constant bronchitis, and at the age of 13 he began coughing up blood. However, he was able to overcome the disease - unlike his sister, who died of tuberculosis.

The poor child had only one joy - drawing. He climbed onto the stove and drew with charcoal. Already at this time, his peculiarity manifested itself - painting helped him cope with emotional experiences. Munch later said:

“One day I had a fight with my father. We argued about how long sinners were destined to suffer in hell. I believed that God would not torture the biggest sinner for more than a thousand years. And his father said that he would suffer a thousand times a thousand years. I didn't give in. The quarrel ended with me slamming the door and leaving. After wandering the streets, I calmed down. He returned home and wanted to make peace with his father. He's already gone to bed. I quietly opened the door to his room. Kneeling in front of the bed, the father prayed. I've never seen him like this. I closed the door and went to my room. I was overcome with anxiety and could not sleep. I ended up taking a notebook and starting to draw. I wrote to my father on my knees in front of the bed. The candle on the nightstand cast a yellow light on her nightgown. I took a box of paints and painted everything in paint. Finally I succeeded. I calmly went to bed and quickly fell asleep.”

Christian was categorically against his son's hobby and sent him to study as an engineer. A year later, Edward, despite the fierce opposition of his parent, entered the Norwegian Institute of Arts. Perhaps the father would have accepted his son’s choice if he had become a “decent” artist, worked in a traditional manner, received many orders and did not need money. However, Edward chose the most radical direction - expressionism, and even got involved with a bohemian company, became addicted to alcohol, and began having affairs with women, including married ones.

At the same time, he began work on his first masterpiece, The Sick Child, in which he depicted his sister Sophie on her deathbed. As he worked, tears streamed down his face. But when the painting was exhibited, the public ridiculed it: “Exhibit something like this! This is a scandal! The picture is incomplete and shapeless; strange stripes dissect the image from top to bottom...”

Misfortunes befall Munch one after another. Sister Laura begins to show the first signs of schizophrenia. Father died. Even the fact that Munch is awarded a scholarship to travel to Paris to improve his skills does not reduce his pain. Later, already in the 1930s, he said:

— I don’t remember anything about Paris. I only remember that before breakfast we drank to sober up, and then we drank to get drunk

.
Quite quickly Munch becomes famous, even famous artist. There is still a negative reaction to his paintings, but sometimes there are enthusiastic responses. Munch continues to transfer his own suffering onto canvas. He conceives the cycle “Frieze of Life” - a series of paintings on the “eternal themes” of love and death. In 1893, he began writing his most famous work, The Scream.

The event that gave rise to the creation of the painting happened several years earlier, on a walk through Christiania; Munch wrote about it in his diary.

“I was walking along the road with friends. The sun has set. Suddenly the sky turned to blood and I felt a breath of sorrow. I froze in place, leaned against the fence - I felt mortally tired. Blood flowed from the clouds over the fjord in streams. My friends moved on, but I was left standing, trembling, with an open wound in my chest. And I heard a strange, drawn-out scream that filled the entire space around me.”

What the artist writes about may not have been entirely a figment of his imagination. The walk took place in Ekeberg, the northern suburb of Christiania, where the city slaughterhouse was located, and next door there was an asylum for the insane, where Munch’s sister, Laura, was placed; the howls of animals echoed the cries of madmen. Influenced by this terrible painting, Munch depicted a figure - a human fetus or mummy - with open mouth, clutching her head with her hands. To the left, as if nothing had happened, two figures are walking; to the right, the ocean is seething. Above is a blood-red sky. "Scream" is a stunning expression of existential horror.

A separate part of Munch’s biography is the history of his relationships with the opposite sex. Despite his frail health, Munch was very handsome; his friends even called him “the most handsome man Norway". Of course, Edward's novels were invariably complex and intricate.

Munch and Tulla Larsen, 1899

Among his vampiric lovers, he was surpassed by Tulla Larsen, a wealthy heiress whom Munch met in 1898, when she was twenty-nine years old. It was passion at first sight, but when Munch tried to escape, she chased him across Europe. Still, he managed to sneak away, and they spent two years apart, but Larsen did not calm down: she tracked down Munch and, showing up at sea ​​coast, where he then lived, settled in a neighboring house. One late evening, a note was brought to Munch: Larsen tried to commit suicide. Munch rushed to her and found her in the bedroom, but as soon as she saw her lover, the lady cheerfully jumped out of bed. Then there were discussions about whether they could be together, as a result of which one of the two ended up with a gun in his hands, someone pulled the trigger, and the bullet shattered Munch’s middle finger on his left hand.

Self-portrait with a bottle of wine, 1906

By that time financial situation Munch improved significantly: recognition came to him, and with it orders. However, suddenly Munch began to suspect strangers secret police agents sent to keep an eye on him. In addition, he experienced attacks of partial paralysis: sometimes his leg went numb, sometimes his arm—this was due to alcohol abuse. In 1908, friends placed him in a mental hospital near Copenhagen, and his six-month stay there did the artist good.

IN psychiatric clinic, 1908

Returning to Norway, Munch settled alone. Set up a workshop for himself open air and surrounded it with walls 4 meters high. His house had extremely unpretentious furnishings: a bed, a couple of chairs, a table. He continued to earn good money and even supported his relatives, but did not communicate with them. He was practically officially recognized as a great Norwegian artist, but celebrations in honor of his anniversaries did not bother him, and he drove away journalists. It is worth noting that in 1918 he even suffered from the Spanish flu, which claimed many lives, but survived, despite his eternal illness. At the same time, he was constantly afraid for his life: he was afraid of getting bronchitis, he was afraid to turn on gas stove, was afraid that one of his relatives would get sick and die.

Self-portrait after the Spanish Flu, 1919

One day Rabindranath Tagore came to Oslo. He spoke at assembly hall university with a lecture on art, in which he argued that spiritual content plays a greater role in the art of the East than in art Western world. He immediately liked the art of Edvard Munch and bought one of his paintings. A few years later he came to Oslo close friend Tagore.
He brought Munch greetings from Tagore. I took him to Munch and translated the conversation. Tagore's friend bowed low before Munch and said:
“My lord and friend Rabindranath Tagore asked me to convey his respectful greetings to you.” He values ​​your painting as a pearl in his collection.
Munch asked me to thank me and ask what he thought about life after death. The Hindu believed that everyone should relive their lives until they become pure and good.
Munch asked if he knew such pure and good people who don't have to relive their lives. The Hindu replied:
- Few people are perfect. I know only one - Mahatma Gandhi.
Munch asked if Tagore would avoid having to relive his life. Tagore's friend said:
“My master is a great master.” Maybe he greatest writer, living in India. But he will have to relive life again.
— Isn’t what an artist achieves in art the most important thing? Ask him if he thinks Tagore has reached the heights of art.
The Hindu replied:
— Tagore is a great artist. The greatest may be living in India, but I think he will have to relive life.
“If an artist reaches the heights of art, then he simply has no time to visit the sick and help the poor. Tell him this and ask him, is Tagore not all about his art, has he not reached the pinnacle of art? - The Hindu repeated:
“My master Tagore is a great master. But he, like all of us, will have to relive his life.
At first, Munch silently looked at the guest. Then he took a step forward and bowed deeply. He lost his balance and almost fell, but managed to hold on, taking several small, quick steps. And, leaving the room, he said to me:
- Take him to hell.
Rolf Sternesen. "Edvard Munch"

So Munch lived until, in 1937, the Nazis in Germany included him in the list of “degenerate artists.” Munch feared for his life when German troops invaded Norway in April 1940. Oddly enough, at first the Nazis tried to win his favor. Munch was invited to join the organization of Norwegian artists, which was under the patronage of the new government; he refused and began to wait for the police to break in on him. He was later ordered to get out of his own home, but the order was never carried out. Confused and frightened, Munch continued to work - mainly on landscapes and self-portraits. He died on January 23, 1944, about a month after his eightieth birthday.

One of the last self-portraits - “Munch eats a cod head”, 1940

But Munch never ceased to amaze even after his death. When his friends entered the second floor of Munch's house, where during his life he had not allowed anyone in for many years, they were amazed. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with the artist's works: 1,008 paintings, 4,443 drawings, 15,391 engravings, 378 lithographs, 188 etchings, 148 carved wooden boards, 143 lithographic stones, 155 copper plates, countless photographs and all of his diaries. Munch bequeathed all his works to the city of Oslo without any conditions, and in 1963 the Munch Museum opened in the capital of Norway, where everything that was found in his house is stored. A huge inheritance from a man who, as a child, was sure that he would die before he became an adult.

Based on materials from the books “Edvard Munch” by Rolf Sternesen and Elisabeth Lundy “ Secret life great artists"