The Island

The Island from 1900 depicts one of the small islands of the Oslofjord — the archipelago of rocky skerries and larger wooded islands that defined the character of the inner fjord landscape near Åsgårdstrand. Islands held obvious symbolic potential as figures of isolation, self-sufficiency, and detachment from the mainland world, and Munch returned to island subjects across his career. This particular view, with its low rocky profile against water and sky, participates in the tradition of Scandinavian island landscape painting while carrying Munch's characteristic quality of emotional investment in landscape subjects. The work's current location is untraced.

Munch renders the island as a simple horizontal mass — rock and perhaps vegetation — against the grey fjord water and the sky, using the compositional simplicity of the subject to create a meditation on spatial relationship and solitude. The palette is restricted to the cool, naturalistic tones of the fjord landscape.