Young Woman under the Apple Tree

Young Woman under the Apple Tree by Edvard Munch from 1904, held at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, places a young female figure beneath an apple tree — a subject laden with symbolic resonance reaching back to the Garden of Eden and the tradition of women in orchard settings throughout Western art history. An apple tree in blossom or fruit was a natural frame for a young woman, its seasonal life-cycle suggesting the relationship between female youth and nature's cycles. Munch's treatment of this archetypally symbolic subject would bring his characteristic psychological directness to what might otherwise have been a purely decorative pastoral image.

Munch uses the apple tree's structure — branches, foliage, perhaps blossoms or fruit — as a framing device that creates a natural canopy over the figure. His palette would contrast the warm tones of the young woman's clothing or skin against the varying greens of the tree's summer or spring foliage.