The Goatcart

The Goatcart by Edvard Munch from 1903 depicts a goat-drawn cart — a rural Norwegian subject that connects Munch's imagery to the agricultural life of the Norwegian countryside rather than the coastal and urban settings of his most celebrated works. Goats were common working animals in rural Norway at the turn of the century, and a goatcart would have been a familiar sight in the farming communities around the fjords and upland areas. Munch here appears to be interested in the ordinary life of the Norwegian rural world that coexisted with the more sophisticated urban and resort culture he usually inhabited. The subject has a folk quality quite different from his symbolic figure paintings.

Munch renders the goatcart scene with a directness appropriate to its rural subject, using his characteristic bold strokes to capture the movement of the animal and cart and the texture of the surrounding landscape. His palette for a rural Norwegian scene would use the warm ochres and greens of summer countryside.