Jesse Waugh

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Flowering Tree near Munch's Grave

Jesse Waugh
Flowering Tree near Munch's Grave
2014
Oil on canvas

"Flowering Tree near Munch's Grave" depicts a white lilac tree opposite the grave site of Edvard Munch - the Norwegian painter of "The Scream". The cemetery depicted is Cemetery of Our Saviour in Oslo.

I was won over by Munch's paintings, although the people in his paintings tend to look dead, with their eyes sunken in. He achieved a sort of whiplash flow (the chi in Taoism) in his works which make them thoroughly Art Nouveau - probably more than any other painter I've seen.

I did not attempt to copy his flowing technique, but I allowed myself to be looser in form than usual with Flowering Tree near Munch's Grave, and some of his flowing fields did creep into my painting - in the grass and in the trees.

In the studio