Cavallo al galoppo

By 1912 Munch was living quietly back in Norway, a few years past the nervous collapse that had put him in a Copenhagen clinic, and painting with more force than fragility. Here a workhorse comes barrelling straight down a narrow country road toward you, the driver small and almost helpless behind it. Munch tips the perspective so steeply that the animal seems to burst out of the picture, and the detail he fixes on is the horse's wide, rolling eye, turned to meet yours. Off to the sides small figures press back against the snowbanks to let it pass. He painted it the same year a big modern-art show in Cologne gave him a room of his own among Europe's leading painters.