Law

Law of 1887 is an early canvas whose unusual title — legal, regulatory, or perhaps simply a description of a scene — gives it an ambiguous status within Munch's early production. The bohemian circle around Hans Jæger with which he was closely associated in 1887 was explicitly anti-establishment, its members having experienced the law's power directly through Jæger's prosecution for his novel Fra Kristiania-Bohemen. In this context a canvas titled Law could carry critical rather than merely descriptive significance — the law as an oppressive social force rather than a neutral institution. Whatever the specific subject, 1887 was a year of productive experimentation in Munch's development, and the unusual title suggests a painter willing to approach subject matter outside the conventional categories of Norwegian Naturalist painting: portraits, landscapes, domestic interiors. His willingness to engage with social and legal subjects reflects Jæger's influence in encouraging artists to address the full reality of their social world.

Based on Munch's consistent practice in 1887, this work would employ the relatively controlled Naturalist technique of his early years, with warm interior or exterior light and the figure-ground relationships typical of Norwegian genre painting conventions. The early works from this year share a commitment to observational directness within inherited Naturalist frameworks.