An Eye on Art: Creativity as Emotional Release or Expression

We’ve all done it. As creatives, we allow our emotions to flow into our work, and perhaps, we even have a need to do so. Authors take real life experiences and write them into their stories, perhaps rewriting, so the endings that are preferred to real ones, because in stories, anything can happen. Songwriters pour their emotions into their music, and artists spill their emotions across the canvas for all to see. Creativity is the way we express ourselves and often, the way we interpret the reality around us.

The Expressionism of Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a noted Norwegian Painter and Printmaker who lived from 1863-1944. Plagued by a troubled childhood and difficulty in his adult relationships, the mental and social disruptions of a tormented mind are evident in his artworks, particularly in those done in his expressionistic style, which created the most controversy and made him famous. At an early age, he lost both his mother and his older sister, Johanne Sophie³, to tuberculosis, and later in life, another sister, Laura Katherine, developed a schizophrenic illness and was confined to a mental asylum. His romantic relationships were filled with turmoil and eventually he became rather reclusive, withdrawing more and more from human society.²

The expressionistic work of Edvard Munch employs distortion and vibrant colors to draw viewers’ focus; demanding patrons attention. The work titled, Vampire (1892), was so controversial in its time, that it closed down the Verein Berliner Kunstler exhibition of 1892; an event that catapulted Munch’s career into celebrity.  In this work, the vibrant colors that are so typical of Munch are not seen. It is a dark scene with the orange-red of the female’s hair being the only color that really draws the eye, as she embraces the male laying across her lap. With this painting, Munch set out to make us see the fine line between love and pain with this painting, hence the original title, Love and Pain. It was mistakenly interpreted as having a vampiric theme, and the painting’s subjects do appear more as predator and prey than as lovers in consoling embrace, especially if one takes notice of the bluish hue of the male’s facial skin.¹

 The models for his works may have been real women in his life and are portrayed in Munch’s work either as life devouring vampires, sultry seductresses, or frail and naked, reflective of his own personal relationships. It is believed that Love and Pain depicts his at one time lover Tulla Larsen, a rich winemaker’s daughter, who he had a turbulent relationship with. Whereas Madonna (1894-95) depicts another ex-lover, Dagny Juel, reflecting her liberated sexuality in contrast in contrast the traditional idea of a chaste Madonna. It features a nude woman contorted, perhaps in the throes of passion, with a red, rather than white or golden halo.¹ Ashes (1894-95) is thought to depict clandestine, but destined to end in despair, meetings in the forest with his cousin’s wife, Millie Thaulow.³

On the other hand, in The Weeping Nude (1913), the focus figure is much less distorted. Attention is focused on the nude, through his use of vibrant colors that contrast with her flesh colors, drawing the eye to the central figure. Sadness and depression are the dominant emotions that radiate from this work, and the emotion rises from the pose, and the concealment of the figure’s identity.

The haunting image of The Scream (1893) reflects feelings that all viewers easily relate to. At some point in life, we all have felt like screaming at the world, and so to, have felt as no one would hear or care. By far his most famous painting, the violent forms and savage colors are representative of contemporary sentiments. In truth, this image may not be a screaming figure, as most believe, but rather, it is his attempt to block out “nature screaming during a blood-red sunset”, (perhaps during a panic attack), according to Munch himself. This sky and setting appear in at least two more of Munch’s works done around the same time: Despair (1893-94) and  Anxiety (1894). It is believed by some that the location was one in Oslo, near a slaughterhouse and the asylum where his younger sister, Laura Katherine, was housed, where he may have visited often, and which would have had a cacophony of screams between the dying animals and the mental patients’ cries.¹

He was featured as the male figure in many of his works, including perhaps Ashes and Love and Pain, above, to further attest to the expression of emotions from his own life, revealing his inner soul. While not happy images, they are captivating, and they draw out our darker sides.

As authors, our stories should reveal so much. If you could look into the minds of horror authors such as Steven King, Peter Straub, Dean Koontz, and so many more, perhaps you would find similar histories, filled with pain and despair, to fuel their creative story telling. Or perhaps some are just meant to allow their darker sides to dominate and be expressed through their creative works.

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¹ “7 Must See Paintings by Edvard Munch”. The Collector. June 11, 2025. Anastasiia Kirpolov, MA: 7 Must-See Paintings by Edvard Munch | The Collector

² “Beyond the Scream: How Edvard Munch Channeled a Timeless Sense of Dread”. Art in America. March 17, 2021. Tessa Solomon: What Are Edvard Munch’s Most Famous Paintings?

³ “16 of Edvard Munch’s Paintings”. Artistic Junkie: Art for All.: 16 of Edvard Munch’s Paintings | ArtisticJunkie.com

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and Book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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This postis sponsored by the Midnight Anthology Series and WordCrafter Press.

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