Summer

Summer of 1889 at the Stenersen Museum is a companion in spirit to the related seasonal titles Munch was producing in this pivotal year — canvases that moved away from specific subject or narrative toward the evocation of atmospheric and emotional states that the seasons embodied. His return from Paris with its exposure to Symbolist aesthetics encouraged him to see the painting's title as constitutive of its meaning rather than merely descriptive — Summer was not a painting of a summer scene but a summoning of the feeling-state that summer represented. Rolf Stenersen, whose bequest formed this collection, was among Munch's most important patrons — a stockbroker who collected his work systematically over decades and whose gift to the city of Oslo created one of the significant concentrations of Munch's painting outside the Munch Museum itself. This canvas documents the moment when Munch's thematic approach to landscape was crystallising from observation into evocation.

The summer subject allows Munch to work with warm, expansive colour and compositions conveying spatial and temporal openness. His handling in 1889 retains Post-Impressionist influence, with varied directional brushwork that follows form and light.