Edvard Munch
1902
Oil paint on canvas
Edvard Munch often depicted the stages of life, as people matured from youth to old age. Although he sometimes presented the subject in a dream-like or timeless setting, as in the large painting Woman in Three Stages, here, he unfolds the allegory on an ordinary street. Four female figures embody childhood, youth, maturity and old age. Munch presents this life cycle as hard-bitten, with the fresh innocence of the young girl giving way to the melancholic and increasingly deathly appearance of the older women.