The Kiss IV

Two figures embracing against a background of strong vertical wood grain.

No specific room details or outside scenery are depicted here.

The two stand monumentally in the center of the composition.

Edvard Munch dedicated many years to this motif.

Between 1891 and 1897, he repeatedly painted oil works of a man and woman embracing by a window.

In 1895, he rendered this composition as a copper engraving.

He did not stop.

His encounter with the medium of woodcut profoundly transformed his expression.

He created his first woodcut in 1897, followed by the next version the following year.

And finally, in 1902, he arrived at this work.

He separated the thick woodblock with a fretsaw.

The figures, and the background.

Their heads were scraped away with a rough chisel, as if torn.

Facial features such as eyes, nose, and mouth were completely obliterated.

Stripping away individual identity, he transformed the two embracing bodies into a single black silhouette.

For the background, he used the raw, unprocessed grain of pine or coniferous wood.

For the figures' block, he applied opaque black or dark gray ink.

For the background block, he applied gray ink.

He then reassembled them like a puzzle and printed them with a single impression.

While separating the figures and background, he harmonized them completely through the wood grain.

This was his invented 'jigsaw puzzle method'.

In the early 1900s, while living in Kvitsten, Norway, he left a pencil note on the back of one print.

'Edvard Munch, residing in Kvitsten, Norway. Title: The Embrace, woodcut from two blocks, price 200 dollars.'

A vivid record of his attempt to market his work directly to international collectors.

The initial plates for this print were made in the workshop of the Berlin craftsman Lassally.

And even after 1906, it continued to be printed on the finest Japanese paper imported from Japan.