The Wedding of the Bohemian

Edvard Munch, the forerunner of expressionistic art, a renowned symbolist painter and a printmaker, is known for his various art compositions. In most of his work, he used painting to express themes of love, sickness, misery, death and melancholia.

Among his famous pieces of art is the Wedding of the Bohemian, 1925-1930. This oil on a canvas painting measuring 138 x 181 cm depicts a wedding scenario. It has a bride and a groom seated on a table with men around them. Munch is also among the darkly dressed men in the artwork, sitting on the far left away from the others. Additionally, there are dishes and a bottle of drinks on the table, showing some wedding celebration scenes. This wedding of Boheniam painting is an expressionism art and Edvard Munch painted it as an illustration of a love theme from a Bohemian wedding. His distance from the others, however, shows some form of isolation. It is an art with a million words.

Currently, this piece of artwork resides at the Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway. This museum is specially dedicated to the life and works of Edvard Munch. Anyone who wants to view this painting and other related works by Munch can visit the Munch Museum for an unrestricted view. Other than this wedding of Bohemian painting, Edvard Munch also painted other related works, which include; Oslo Bohemians and the Self-Portrait at the wedding table. In the course of his life, Munch visited Paris for the Exposition Universelle festivities in 1889. While here, he got to interact with other artists and was thrilled by the modern European artwork.

Here he met some renowned artists whose works were influential and they became his greatest source of inspiration. They were Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Seurat and Paul Gauguin. These artists had something in common; they had a unique way of playing with colour to convey their feelings or emotions. One of the works that particularly inspired him was Gauguin's "reaction against realism" and Seurat's pointillist painting style. Munch painted some of the famous art pieces during his lifetime, which are highly valued in Norway and abroad. His paintings are available in various galleries and museums and are used in exhibitions. After he died in 1944, the city of Oslo bequeathed his remaining work and created the Munch Museum in his honour. Though he died, his rich legacy still lives.