"A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself..." — Edvard Munch

I learned early about the misery and dangers of life, and about the afterlife, about the external punishment which awaited the children of sin in Hell.

I painted the picture, and in the colors the rhythm of the music quivers. I painted the colors I saw.

By painting colors and lines and forms seen in quickened mood I was seeking to make this mood vibrate as a phonograph does. This was the origin of the paintings in The Frieze of Life.

I should have considered it wrong to have finished the Frieze before the room for its accommodation and the funds for its completion were available.