The vast expanses of forest that dominate Norway’s landscape have long fascinated the nation’s artists. The dark silhouettes of spruce and pine emerge from snow-capped mountain ranges and shorelines, nurturing rich ecosystems of vibrantly hued lichens, mosses and all manner of fauna – the perfect fodder for anyone concerned with the nature’s immense and oftentimes mythic beauty.
Yet for two of the country’s greatest painters the innate, tangible qualities of wood were not just an aesthetic concern, but a tool with which to experiment and push the parameters of their practice through printmaking.
Edvard Munch and Nikolai Astrup studied painting in Kristiania (present-day Oslo) but had no official training in what was then termed the ‘graphic arts’. The former is known as the father of Expressionism, a master of haunting introspection whose canvases are some of the best-known in the world. The latter (two decades younger) is a national treasure in the eyes of most Norwegians thanks to his glorious landscapes informed by folkloric traditions. However, he is still largely overlooked on a global scale, despite a few recent international exhibitions, including a group show now on at the British Museum.
Both began toying with woodcut printing without any particular precedent. They searched not for the possibilities of facsimile reproduction, but the vernacular qualities of woodgrain, which might inform a composition or else be incorporated for dramatic emphasis. Woodcut is widely considered to be the earliest form of printmaking in the world, having found a foothold in ancient east Asia several hundred years before it became a viable form of image-making in northern Europe. In its crudest form, a picture can be produced simply by gouging marks into a block or wood with a knife or chisel, before it is slathered in ink and a piece of paper pressed on top, thus producing a result without the need for specialist equipment.
The immediacy of this process fascinated Munch, who sought a technique that held the same vital urgency as his works on canvas. Rather than cutting individual blocks to be inked and layered separately, he effectively made jigsaw pieces that could be recoloured and even moved around to create entirely new compositions. Moonlight I and II, for example, form part of an ongoing obsession with darkness as a form of mental isolation. In these images, a forlorn woman’s expression is almost dragged down by the vertical lines of the grain, while violent cuts represent a rough, rural lodging most likely in Asgårdstrand.
Among these psychological portraits was a continual return to the forest as a motif of seclusion and isolation. In various iterations of Towards the Forest a melancholy couple walk through an unknown landscape, huddled against assorted palettes that alter the mood of every impression with their varied tones and unique ink marks.
Astrup’s prints took on an even more painterly quality. In fact, at first glance they are often indistinguishable from his canvases, not least because he was known to combine woodcut, linocut and painted elements within a single work. He also favoured oil paints as his pigment of choice, as opposed to specialist printing inks, thus allowing for a slippery quality that suited his penchant for painting directly on to the block with a brush.
Unlike Munch, Astrup was almost entirely occupied with representative landscapes. He lived in a remote, self-sufficient farmstead in Jølster (where he would ultimately succumb to pneumonia aged only 47) with his wife and their eight children. For Astrup, there was magic in the dark depths of the forest, the edges of the lake, or the distant crags of shadowy peaks. He was known to prune local foliage in an attempt to emulate the trolls and sprites that were emblematic of pagan ritual. This is most wonderfully illustrated in a series of prints known as Spring Night and Sallow, where branches have become arms that reach out over frozen landscapes drenched in varied hues of icy blue, frosty lilac and charcoal black.
Astrup’s images, in contrast to Munch’s, hold an innate joy. He sliced his woodcuts more delicately, coloured them more intensely, and found an affinity in the rugged qualities of his material and that of nature itself. As he declared: ‘I wished... to wash my art in the raw colours of Western Norway, in order to cleanse myself of everything I may have ingested of another kind of art.’ This clear-eyed view knew no barriers between print and painting, of internal spirit and external landscape. He took the land to heart and, just like Munch, found expression in the very material that grew all around him.
‘Nordic Noir: Works on Paper from Edvard Munch to Mamma Andersson’ runs at the British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1, until 22 March 2026. For more information, visit britishmuseum.org
‘Edvard Munch: Up Close’ is on permanent display at the Munchmuseet, Oslo. For more information, visit munch.no
Holly EJ Black is the author of ‘The Story of Printmaking’, published by Yale University Press on 28 April 2026
