Law

Law of 1887, an early Munch work, may represent a specific legal or civic scene or may use the title metaphorically to indicate a subject touching on authority, order, or social regulation. The bohemian milieu in which Munch moved in 1887 around Hans Jæger's circle was explicitly anti-establishment, and a work titled Law may carry critical rather than celebratory significance in that context. What can be said with certainty is that 1887 produced a remarkable diversity of subjects in Munch's output, suggesting an unusually curious and exploratory phase of his development in the year before his first transformative trip to Paris.

Based on Munch's consistent practice in 1887, this work would employ the relatively controlled Naturalist technique of his early years, with warm interior or exterior light and the figure-ground relationships typical of Norwegian genre painting conventions. The early works from this year share a commitment to observational directness within inherited Naturalist frameworks.