The Girl by the Window

Notes from the museum

Standing before a window in the dead of night, a young girl draws back a curtain to gaze at the street from her darkened room. Deep shadows envelop the interior, obscuring all but the suggestion of a rounded piece of furniture at the lower right. The darkness, combined with the sharply tilted floor, gives a sense of precariousness and isolation to the figure. Loosely applied brown, blue, and violet tones enhance the melancholy atmosphere. The window serves as a symbolic barrier, separating the interior from the outside world, but also as a membrane, through which moonlight casts glowing rectangles upon the floor. Although the girl’s actions suggest a narrative, the painting only provides mystery—we cannot see her facial expression, nor what she observes. Girl by the Window belongs to a group of nocturnal scenes painted by Edvard Munch in the early 1890s, all characterized by moody blue tonalities. Around that time he penned a manifesto in which he declared that artists should depict “living people who breathe and feel, suffer and love.” This focus on the psychological realities of human existence found its ultimate expression in Munch’s iconic work The Scream (1893; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo).

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work The Scream has become one of the iconic and acclaimed images in all of Western art.

Painter profile →