Cherry Tree in Blossom and Young Girls in the Garden

The summer of 1905 was the summer Norway left Sweden. In June the parliament in Kristiania declared the union with the Swedish crown dissolved, both sides made military preparations while they negotiated, and in August Norwegians voted on it, 368,208 to 184. Munch spent those months in the country, much of the time at Åsgårdstrand on the fjord, where he owned a small house with a garden. He painted flowering fruit trees over and over that year, in colours far brighter than the work that had made his name in Berlin. He was 41 and drinking hard. In the autumn a fight with the younger painter Ludvig Karsten ended his time in the town. He left in a hurry and did not come back to Åsgårdstrand for four years.