Ulrich Bischoff

Psychodrama: The reverberating power of an Expressionist iconA hairless, ghostly figure on a bridge. The sky orange-red above him. His hands raised to his ears, his mouth wide in a haunting wail. In painting The Scream, Edvard Munch (1863 1944) created Mona Lisa for our times. The shriek of his iconic figure reverberates around the world, its echo resounding in the work of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, and Tracey Emin.This introductory book surveys Munch s staggering capacity for psychodrama in The Scream and beyond. With rich illustration, it looks at the lurid, dark, and deeply modern visions that made up the artist s response to relationships and emotions. These compelling images, regarded by the artist himself as a means of free confession, remain as magnetic today as they were on the brink of modernism.About the series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions"

For Edvard Munch (1863-1944), painting was an act of self-liberation. His treatments of fear, desperation, and death still exert a powerful visual and psychological effect on modern viewers. Of all Munch's paintings, "The Scream" (1893), representing a figure tortured by horror, is the most well-known-and certainly one of the most expressive.

With unparalleled artistic originality Max Ernst (1891–1976) transformed everything he touched. By pushing the boundaries and breaking loose from the confined view of the culture of his time, he became one of the most important figures of Dadaism and Surrealism. Driven by the counter-reaction to the horrors of World War I, he became a pioneer of the Dada movement. The closing of the famed Dada exhibit in Cologne for ‘obscenity’ led Ernst to spend the rest of his life in Paris, where he came in contact with the Surrealists. Above all, Ernst stands out for his varied style and technique, having produced an oeuvre that reaches from paintings, drawings, and sculpture, across texts and stage settings to collage novels and the development of his own ‘frottage’ technique. During World War II, Ernst, like many of his colleagues, became an ‘undesirable foreigner’ and was forced to emigrate; however, he returned to France after the war. Continuing a career that spanned decades, in 1954 he received the Grand Prize for Painting at the Biennial in Venice. This book is a journey through magic, vividness, and fantasy. It is a gateway into the intricate mind and world of Max Ernst. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions