Astronomers Unravel Stories Behind Three Munch Masterpieces.

Byline: Staff Writers

San Marcos TX (SPX) Jul 07, 2009, 2009 Famed Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) has long been a favorite of Texas State University-San Marcos faculty members Don Olson and Russell Doescher. In 2003, the physics department researchers connected the blood-red sky of Munch's anguished masterpiece "The Scream" to the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa on the other side of the globe.

They turned their attention to Munch's beloved painting "Girls on the Pier" in 2006, firmly identifying the yellow orb in the sky as the Moon - not the Sun, as some had theorized - and used simple physics to explain why the Moon cast no reflection on the waters.

For an encore, Olson and Doescher, along with Texas State Honors Students Joseph Herbert, Robert Newton, and Ava Pope, apply their forensic astronomy tools to three of Munch's masterworks, identifying the time and place of their creation - a one-month period in Asgardstrand, Norway, when some historians had traditionally believed Munch out of the country.

The Texas State researchers' findings are published in the August 2009 issue of Griffith Observer magazine, and an account of their research in Norway will appear in the August 2009 issue of the Norwegian magazine Astronomi.

"We were investigating Munch's 1893 painting "Starry Night" and discovered that two other Munch paintings - 'The Storm' and 'Sunrise in Asgardstrand' - featured the same settings and also had been dated to that year," Olson explained.

"Several chronologies of Munch's life place him in Germany at this time. One biography goes so far as to say, 'Summer came, and Munch had neither the money nor the inclination to go to Norway.' But we discovered a memoir by Jens Thiis, a long-time friend of the artist, which places him and Munch together in Asgardstrand on August 17, 1893."