Weeping Woman

Munch made this in 1907 while he was staying at Warnemunde, a small resort on the German Baltic coast, working through one of the hardest stretches of his life. It grew out of a photograph he took there of a model, Rosa Meissner, standing undressed beside a bed. He returned to the pose again and again, in drawings, prints and several paintings. Despite the title there are no visible tears. The grief is carried entirely by the slumped head and the heavy stillness of the body. Within a year Munch's drinking and nerves gave way and he checked himself into a clinic in Copenhagen. This is one of the last things he painted before that.