Church in Travemünde

Church in Travemünde by Edvard Munch from 1903 depicts the historic St. Lawrence's Church in Travemünde, the Baltic port town at the mouth of the Trave river that Munch visited during his stays in Lübeck and on the German Baltic coast. Churches as architectural subjects were relatively unusual in Munch's output, which was primarily devoted to human figures in interior or coastal settings. The church in Travemünde, with its distinctive medieval brick tower and the open sky of the Baltic coast surrounding it, offered an imposing architectural subject very different from the organic Norwegian landscape forms he typically depicted. This choice of subject reflects the diversity of Munch's pictorial interests during his German period.

Munch renders the church facade and tower with a directness unusual for his figure-centric practice, using the architectural forms' verticality as a compositional anchor against the open sky. His handling of the brick surfaces and the surrounding landscape is looser and more atmospheric than a purely architectural rendering would require.