Children in the Street

Children in the Street was a painting on canvas that was created by Edvard Munch in 1915. The painting is currently housed in the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. This painting is about 92cm by 100 cm and made with oil paints.

The image shows a group of children in what looks like a long, narrow street bedside high-rise buildings. While there are a few details on the image, readers can see a few faces of the children with the first wearing a white dress with orange clothing at the burst. Other children walk behind the leader in a single line. Edvard had a pretty rough childhood. He lost his mother in 1868 and the sister in 1877. His father was a crazy parent that did little to give parental love to his children. However, he was later cared for by his aunt called Karen. Edvard was ill in most winters and drew to keep himself busy. The father also instructed him in literature and history. During his later years, he drew various images of the kind of childhood he would have loved to have. This is one of the images that he created celebrating childhood.

The painter went with expressionism style of painting. With expressionism, painters used painting to show emotions and reactions to things around them. This could be used to show deep fears and aspirations of the subject in the main story. Therefore, the images on the canvas could be distorted in some way to look different from the everyday items one finds in nature. Besides, some of the items on the image would look abstract, as readers cannot define what they meant. In addition, artists made use of vibrant colours to represent various parts of the painting and different emotions and meanings for each.

In this painting, Edvard looks back to his young years when he used to play with children in the neighbourhood with all the glamour and fun that was there. He also uses the paints to highlight the kind of life he did not live due to the loss of the mum and sister early in his life. Besides, some critics believe that the image was used to highlight some of the challenges that young children meet when growing up on the streets. This is shown by the fact that the image does not show glamour and children having fun. During his growing, childhood was plagued with all kinds of problems ranging from lack to diseases. Therefore, the painting showed his love for a perfect life as a kid and all the joy that came with it. He did other children paintings later.