Madonna

A Madonna unlike any other

A woman with long black hair leans back, eyes half closed, her arms behind her head. Instead of a gold halo, she wears a red band around her hair. Edvard Munch called the picture Madonna, but she is far from the traditional Virgin Mary.

Munch painted several versions between 1894 and 1895. The one shown here belongs to the National Museum in Oslo. He also made a famous lithograph of the subject.

Eyes closed, as if in a trance

Her face is pale and tilted, the eyes dark and half closed, the mouth relaxed. She seems caught between ecstasy and exhaustion. Munch connected the image to the moment of conception, uniting love, life and death.

A halo of moving lines

Around her body, the background swirls in curving bands of dark blue, red and brown. They act like an aura or a halo, making the figure glow. Her hair falls in long black strands that merge with these lines.

The painting belongs to Munch’s Frieze of Life, a series about love, anxiety and death that he developed through the 1890s.

Signed in red

Munch signed “E Munch” in red paint at the lower left corner. In the lithograph version he added a border with swimming sperm cells and a small foetus, making the theme of conception explicit.

Questions about Munch’s Madonna

Is it the Virgin Mary?

Not in the traditional sense. Munch used the title for an image of a woman linked to love, conception and death.

How many versions are there?

Several paintings from 1894 to 1895, plus a lithograph.

Where is this version?

National Museum, Oslo.

Why is there a red halo?

The red band replaces the traditional gold halo of religious paintings.

Sources and image credit

• National Museum, Oslo
• Wikimedia Commons: Madonna (1894 to 1895)

Public-domain reproduction of Madonna (1894 to 1895), via Wikimedia Commons. Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.