The Yellow Log

In the winter of 1912 Munch was living on the coast at Kragerø in southern Norway, and he painted a run of pictures of timber being felled in the woods near the town, probably on the ground where Kragerø's sports stadium stands today. Trees were cut in winter then, because logs could be hauled out over the snow and the wood was better. They were also stripped of their bark before being moved, and that is why this trunk is such a raw, bright yellow against the violet pines still standing around it. Munch laid the log straight down into the picture, so it runs from the foreground deep into the forest. The painting has a well-known optical effect. Walk from one side of the canvas to the other, and the cut end of the log seems to keep pointing at you.