Jealousy

The painting Jealousy is regarded as belonging to a series of pictures Munch painted in the north German seaside town of Warnemünde in 1907. In this series Munch shows the other side of love. The motifs are negatively charged and look at the complicated relationships between men and women.

Because most of the motifs have interiors with green walls the series is known as The Green Room. In Jealousy Munch returns to a motif he had developed in the 1890s, inspired by love and jealousy dramas in the circle of artists and intellectuals in Berlin.

We see two men and a woman, and understand straight away that this is all about jealousy. The woman is between the two men, one of whom looks at us with staring eyes whilst the other stands with eyes downcast.
Clothed in a white dress with a dark belt around the waist, her hair flowing out and with her arms held over her head, the woman shows herself to the men. Her face is a glowing red.

Behind the three we can make out a green wall with reddish-blue stains. The colour green, which we often associate with jealousy, is reflected in the face of the man on the left. Green is also the complementary colour to red, the colour of love.