Starry Night

Munch's Starry Night from 1901 is distinct from Van Gogh's famous painting of the same subject, depicting instead the view over the Oslofjord at night as seen from Åsgårdstrand — a dark coastal landscape under a star-filled sky, with the fjord's surface catching the starlight in horizontal reflections. Night and the stars carried deep symbolic weight for Munch, associated with the dissolution of individual consciousness into cosmic space that was one of the recurring themes of his work. The Museum Folkwang in Essen, which acquired this work, was among the most important early German collectors of Scandinavian Post-Impressionism, building a collection that included major works by Munch across several decades.

Munch renders the night sky and fjord in a palette of deep blue, near-black, and the silver-white of reflected stars, using broad horizontal strokes for the water and more varied directional marks for the sky. The composition is structured around the strong horizontal of the horizon and the vertical axis of the reflection, creating a contemplative stillness.