The main artistic device in this sketchy, almost primitive composition is the line: Munch fully exploits the possibilities of this important tool, putting it to painterly, as well as psychological (expressionist) effect. Color plays a no less important, but subordinate role (the black and white lithograph exemplifies how the painting retains its punch even after being discolored). Munch often used proofs of his lithographs and woodcuts as the foundation for drawings, embellishing them with watercolor and gouache to further accentuate their symbolic content. The artist’s search for graphic means to refine key pictorial themes eventually led him to novel combinations of printmaking techniques in a single work. Munch created prints as lithographs
