8. Edvard Munch used the grief over his break-up with Tulla Larsen to make some of his best-known paintings
Throughout the course of history, countless artists have found inspiration from heartbreak. And Edvard Munch was no exception. Indeed, according to several of the Norwegian’s biographers, he was driven to create his most famous work, ‘The Scream’, in the wake of a traumatic break-up. Munch was, after all, an intense man. He lived life hard, drinking too much and falling in love too easily and too deeply. So, when Tulla Larsen broke up with him in 1902, he poured his grief out onto the canvas.
That Larsen was as unstable as Munch himself didn’t make the break-up any easier. According to one account, they agreed to split after an on-off affair of several years when she shot one of his fingers off during a heated argument. Even though he could have been killed, Munch was devastated. At first, he was grief-stricken, but then he was simply angry – emotions that helped him paint his celebrated work ‘The Dance of Life’. To make matters worse, Larsen went on to have a relationship with another painter, while Munch went on to have a full mental breakdown.