Christmas in the Brothel

This comes out of a bad winter for Munch. Around 1904 he was living in Germany near his patron, a portrait commission in Hamburg had just fallen through in a mess of disagreements, and he was managing his nerves with drink in the years that would end in a full breakdown. The scene is a brothel in Lubeck, where he had been. The women who work there have just finished trimming a Christmas tree, and the room is quiet and a little sad, warm light and no customers, one man slumped alone at the edge. Munch had grown up in a strict, religious Norwegian household, and part of what he is doing here is holding that childhood up against a red-lit room on Christmas of all nights. The decorated tree stands in the corner as if this were any front parlour.