Page 35 - Studio International - February 1971

Fenichel : 'Jealousy arises when the need for The Three Stages of Woman. She is in all of revulsion for homosexuality, it should be
the repression of impulses of infidelity or them. Perhaps mostly in the central figure, the mentioned that in 1894 Strindberg wrote an
homosexuality clashes with an unwillingness and nude straddled figure of a woman lifting her article called The Perverse. The introduction
incapacity to accept the loss of love.' arms with her hands clasped behind her head in reveals his feelings : 'Why, moralists, are you •
The following quote from The Genesis of an order to display her luxurious womanliness. forbidding us to discuss an occurrence so
Aspasia shows how Munch's and Strindberg's "I don't understand how my nerves stood it. terrible in its consequences as sexual perversity ?
experiences became mixed and then found I was sitting by the table beside them and How do you think an illness can be cured
expression in the painting and the commentary : couldn't say a word." Strindberg was talking. without a diagnosis ?'
`... the Swedish painter [this refers to Munch] "The whole time I thought, doesn't the husband This subject recurs in the Occult Diary:
brings his mistress there [the Norwegian, understand a thing ? He should first turn green `May 6, 1901
Dagny Juel] ... She throws herself upon and then be furious." Married for the third time. After an
Andersson [Strindberg's alias for himself] ... Munch painted the husband green. It should engagement full of wonderful hours, of noble
presents herself as an enthusiastic admirer of have been himself or Strindberg, because the fights against the ugly...
his ... the painter [Munch] is ignored and Polish husband believed that everybody had the September 6, 1901
accepts it without protest... Andersson liberates right to freedom of choice. He believed that ... I feel myself unclean through her.
her from the anxiety of a disorderly way of nobody should possess another human being. Strange men make me unclean through the
living ... the hollow cheeks are filled out with When his wife later wanted to make love with glances with which they make her unclean.
fiery blood ...the creator admires his creation, a Russian nobleman he himself accompanied Schopenhauer explains "la jalousie légitime"
and after a week they complete the union of her to her lover. It was Munch and Strindberg thus : "My thoughts are directed through my
their souls. When the spark has leaped and the who were furious with jealousy. Strindberg woman to the sexual sphere of another man.
currents are neutralized ... he discovers that wrote, "What can one do with a married She makes me feel perverse, indirectly, and
she is ugly ... is lacking in the modesty which woman who during one and the same week is against my will."
he desires, and when he remembers how she sleeping with men from four different The organ of love is the same as one of the
has offered herself he is overwhelmed by countries ?" organs of excretion !
revulsion for her body, with the result that the Actually the Russian lover answered But I cannot live in spiritual marriage with a
fall is not repeated... he makes up his mind to Strindberg's question. When she wanted to woman who is not my faithful wife, because if
attach her to someone else. leave him he shot and killed her. she is free and has relations with another man
Then follows a description of how he Stenersen thought that Strindberg and she delivers my soul and transfers my love into
attaches her to the doctor from Bayern [this Munch, in spite of many differences, had many another man, and thus causes me to live in a
refers to the German doctor, Carl Ludwig characteristics in common. They had about the prohibited relation with another man's soul or
Schleich]. He in his turn tires of her and, same opinion of women. They felt themselves body or both!
together with Andersson, transfers Dagny Juel misunderstood and persecuted. It never became September 16 1901
[here called Aspasia] to the Polish author, a warm friendship. They met for a time I experience it as if through her I entered
Stanislaw Przybyszewski who, knowing her because of their infatuation with the Norwegian into illegal relations with men and other women.
past, tries to insure himself against successors adventuress ...`Munch wrote to me: "I have This tortures me because I have always had a
by legal marriage.' made some paintings of those people. Among horror of contacts with my own sex. Because of
The actual circumstances are described by them one called Jealousy. It is the painting with this, I have broken off friendly relations when
Strindberg in a number of letters. He refers to the green face in the foreground and a man the friendship from the other man's side has
`the diabolically wretched woman, D.J. (who looking at a nude woman ..." ' revealed a clinging character, similar to love.
also was my mistress for three weeks)'. Stenersen also writes about Munch's portrait (This severance I have never been able to
Strindberg's hatred and revulsion was of Strindberg from the time in Berlin: explain to others.)'
reinforced by strong guilt feelings—the Aspasia `Strindberg was very dissatisfied because Munch The jealousy motive in Strindberg's life and
affair began immediately after Strindberg's had put a rather peculiar frame on the writings can also be traced in his first marriage,
engagement to Frida Uhl and his painting of lithograph. On one side the lines are bent and when he tried to defend himself by accusing
Night of jealousy. on the other turn into the figure of a woman. his wife of lesbianism. This theme found its
When Munch, three years later, was painting Munch said that he wanted to frame Strindberg climax in The Defence of a Madman of 1887, in
his Jealousy, he used as a model for the jealous between masculine and feminine lines. This which Strindberg's horror and revulsion for
man a painter friend, Paul Hermann, who was idea shows that he actually knew more, both homosexual relations are revealed in, for example,
clearly selected because of his resemblance to about himself and about Strindberg, than he the scenes with the wife and the maidservant,
Przybyszewski. consciously realized. Strindberg reacted with the wife and her actress friend. references
In Rolf Stenerson's biography of Munch we violently; he did not want to have a woman in his to well-known tribades, etc. But he is also
find a more objective version of Aspasia and her portrait. During the next sitting for Munch, fascinated by the subject. Six years later, in one
part as a model : he took out a revolver, put it on the table, and of the first letters to his second wife, Frida Uhl,
`In Berlin, in the 189os, Munch became a said: "Don't take any liberties with me" — I he writes : 'I have spent a satanic night in the
member of a strange foursome. One of his remember Strindberg very well; he was also most terrible den of vice, where one meets
friends and greatest admirers was married to a painting storms and cloudscapes. Small, lively humanity for which there is no name. Now and
childhood friend of Munch's. She was an paintings in black, white and grey. The following again I roll in the filth to thicken my skin'—and
unusually fascinating woman, without anecdote illustrates their relationship : Frida Uhl comments, `Strindberg had visited
repressions, and very provocative. Munch and Strindberg said one evening, "I am the greatest meeting places for homosexuals in Berlin.'
Strindberg were frequent guests in her house. painter in Scandinavia". "Are you ?" said In 1893, he painted The Night of jealousy.
Each loved her in his own peculiar and Munch, "then I am the greatest poet! Skil!" ' This painting can be seen as a link in the
characteristic way. Munch, silent and To return to the painting Jealousy, it is development between Strindberg's emotional
introverted, painted her. She stands like a black possible to see the outline of Strindberg's head symbolism in 1892 and his intellectual
crucifix on a spotted surface, and smiles. The as a model for 'the other man'. This appears symbolism in 1894. In the painting Strindberg
eyes are half closed. The painting recalls other more clearly in the lithograph than in the gave expression to an elemental explosion of
pictures entitled Madonna and Woman in Love painting. Regarding Strindberg's prose poem feelings, but through his explanation of the
...the image of her returns in a painting called about the painting, expressing his intense motive of the painting as well as its symbolism,
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