Bathing Scene from Åsgårdstrand

Bathing Scene from Åsgårdstrand from 1904 depicts figures bathing in the waters off the small coastal town that was Munch's summer base, a subject he returned to repeatedly as part of his sustained engagement with the human body in natural Norwegian settings. The bathing subject allowed Munch to explore the vulnerability and exposure of the human body in open space, and the Åsgårdstrand setting gave the scene the personal resonance of a place he knew intimately and associated with both happiness and the melancholy of summer's end. The work's current location is untraced, suggesting it may be in private ownership or an institution not yet publicly catalogued.

Munch applies a relatively open, light palette appropriate to the sunlit Norwegian coastal summer, the bathing figures rendered with the broad, economical brushwork he used for his plein-air subjects. The water is treated with horizontal strokes of varied blues and greens that capture the light's movement on the surface.