Pubertà

Munch painted this version in Berlin in the winter of 1894 and 1895, among the circle of writers and bohemians he was living with there. A naked adolescent girl sits on the edge of her bed, arms crossed over herself, staring straight out with a fixed, uneasy look. Behind her a large dark shadow rises up the wall, shaped nothing like her body, more like a looming presence than a cast shadow. Munch had painted an earlier version years before that was lost to a fire, and he returned to the subject many times. When it was shown in Oslo in 1895 it caused a scandal for its frankness.