O Sol

By 1911 Munch had spent much of the previous decade in fear, of crowds, of drink, of the breakdown that in 1908 put him in a Copenhagen clinic for eight months. When he came out he took a house on the coast at Krageroe in southern Norway and began painting the sea and the low rocky islands. This enormous sun rising over those skerries was made for the ceremonial hall of the University of Oslo, which wanted new murals for its centenary that same year. The commission was fought over for years before he won it, and he made several hundred studies for the room. The sun sits at the center and throws its rays out onto the paintings hung on either side of it, so the light seems to carry across the whole wall.