Two women on the shore

The themes of loneliness, sex and death are vividly expressed in Edvard Munch's color engraving

Along with monotypy, lithography belongs to the group of flat printing techniques, but this is where their similarities seem to end. Lithography appeared in 1796 or 1798, thanks to Johann Alois Senefelder, a typographer from Munich. Initially, they took an imprint from a drawing on a stone slab, usually limestone, which gave the name for the method (ancient Greek λίθος “stone” + γράφω “I write, draw”). Nowadays, instead of lithographic stone, zinc or aluminum plates are used, which are easier to process. Read more

"Two Women on the Shore." A young girl, dressed in white, looks sadly across the dark sea into an unknown future. She doesn't seem to notice the death figure next to her that she is destined to become. By combining the rough texture of a block of wood and limited to basic shapes and a few colors, the Norwegian artist has created a disturbing depiction of the sterility of love and hope. “Two Women on the Shore” is a visual poem about life and death: a young woman, lightly dressed, next to an old woman, dressed in black and kneeling, her face resembles a skull. The topic of the woman and her life stages was often discussed by Munch throughout his career.