At the General Store in Vrengen

At the General Store in Vrengen of 1888, now in the Lillehammer Art Museum, is a rare interior genre scene from Munch's early output, depicting the informal social life of a small Norwegian community gathered in a village shop. Vrengen is a small community near Åsgårdstrand on the Oslo fjord, close to the coastal locations where Munch spent his summers. The genre scene format placed this work within the tradition of Norwegian Naturalist social painting pioneered by Christian Krohg, though Munch's handling already shows an independence from that tradition's stronger documentary and social commitment.

The interior artificial light — warmer and more directional than the outdoor light of his coastal paintings — is handled with a Rembrandtesque concentration on a central lit zone surrounded by deeper shadow. The figures are relatively freely painted, their features and clothes summarised rather than described in laborious detail.