Landschaft bei Travemünde

Travemuende is where Luebeck meets the Baltic, and Munch was there because of a doctor. Max Linde, an eye surgeon in Luebeck, had published the first book about him in 1902 and was buying his work at a point when almost nobody in Germany would. Munch came in late April 1903 to paint Linde's four sons as a birthday present for the doctor's wife, and stayed on around the coast making landscapes. The previous year had gone badly for him. A quarrel with Tulla Larsen ended with a pistol going off and part of a finger on his left hand shot away, and he had drunk his way across northern Europe since. The Linde connection did not last either. In 1904 the doctor commissioned a frieze for his children's rooms, then sent it back, saying the subjects were not suitable for boys.