Girls picking Fruit (The Linde Frieze)

Edvard Munch's 'Girls Picking Fruit (The Linde Frieze)' (1904) is from his decorative commission for Dr. Linde's Lübeck house — the fruit-picking girls as a garden scene of innocent activity formed part of the frieze's overall depiction of domestic garden life. The girls picking fruit created a pastoral subject within the domestic garden setting, the activity of harvest combining with the innocence of youth to create a gentle, celebratory subject quite different from his more psychologically charged work.

Munch renders the fruit-picking girls with the gentle warmth appropriate to the decorative domestic commission — the figures' absorbed engagement with the harvest activity depicted with more lightness and ease than his major exhibition works. His handling of the garden setting and the quality of the light creates the specific domestic atmosphere. The decorative frieze context allowed him to sustain a more harmonious, less psychologically intense visual language across a series of related garden subjects.