Volatile Femininity in Edvard Munch’s Interior Bathing Scenes

Abstract

Edvard Munch rarely depicted images of women bathing in interior settings. Yet these paintings are particularly fascinating since both the bathing space and the bathers remain elusive as it is quite unclear where the women are bathing and for what purpose. This article analyses two of Munch’s interior bathing scenes from the fin-de-siècle through discussing both social understanding of interior bathing spaces at that time and the implications for the female bather within the bathing locale.

Keywords

• Edvard Munch
• gender
• bathing culture
• sexuality
• kjønn
• badekultur