Garden

Garden from 1902 is one of Munch's simpler, more directly observational outdoor subjects, depicting a garden — presumably in Norway or Germany — in the summer season. Garden paintings occupied Munch's plein-air practice alongside his more psychologically charged figure and landscape works; they provided a relatively ordered, human-scaled outdoor environment that offered different compositional problems from the open coastal landscapes of Åsgårdstrand. This work's untraced location suggests it is in private hands or an institution whose holdings are not yet fully digitized.

Munch applies a relatively bright green-dominated palette to the garden subject, the foliage and garden plants rendered in varied greens and the space organized by the natural structure of a planted garden rather than the more open composition of his coastal scenes. The handling is direct and confident.