Self-Portrait in Hell

Self-Portrait in Hell by Edvard Munch from 1903, held at the Munch Museum, is among the most dramatically titled of his self-portraits — placing himself in an infernal setting that combines personal confession with the symbolic tradition of damnation imagery. By 1903, Munch was suffering from increasingly severe mental health difficulties and alcoholism, and the hellish self-presentation may reflect his sense of his own psychological condition. The image of the artist in hell has precedents in the Romantic tradition — Byron, Delacroix — but Munch's treatment is more viscerally personal, less literary pose than genuine expression of psychological extremity. The Munch Museum holds this as one of his most confessional works.

Munch renders himself in a setting of intense heat and red-orange light, using these infernal colors to envelop the figure in an atmosphere of existential danger. His self-image is rendered with the same direct, economical line as his other self-portraits, but the surrounding color gives it an entirely different emotional register.