Trees and Garden Wall in Åsgårdstrand

Edvard Munch's 'Trees and Garden Wall in Åsgårdstrand' (1902) depicts the Norwegian coastal village that was his primary summer retreat throughout his career — Åsgårdstrand on the Oslo Fjord, with its characteristic wooden houses, orchards, and the rocky shoreline, was a place of deep personal and artistic significance for him. His garden and landscape subjects from Åsgårdstrand showed a more intimate, domestic Munch alongside the more anguished psychological subjects for which he was primarily known, the garden's specific trees and walls charged with personal memory and repeated observation.

Munch renders the garden trees and wall with the directness and atmospheric sensitivity of his best outdoor subjects — the specific character of the Norwegian apple trees and the stone or wooden garden wall depicted with close observational engagement. His handling of the light on the garden vegetation and the quality of the summer or autumn Norwegian coastal atmosphere creates the specific visual character of the Åsgårdstrand garden. The intimacy of the garden subject creates a more restrained register than his major psychological compositions.