Art Throb # 12: Between Clock and Bed (1943) by Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Between Clock and Bed (1943)

Oil on canvas, 149.5 x 120.5 cm

The Munch Museum, Oslo

Much was made of this painting when it went on show at the Tate Modern, and with good reason I think. The absence of any of The Scream pieces at the exhibition allowed it to emerge more fully into public awareness. I wasn't aware of it, although when I saw it on The Review Show at the time I wanted to know more about it. Painted just a year or so before his death, it is haunting: a portrait of the artist by the artist, who appears to paint himself objectively. Treading a fine line between sentimentality and gentle humour, Munch presents himself as a stiff old man who knows his time is nigh, yet the grandfather clock and many of the vertical lines in the painting are a bit wonky – perhaps a reference to the nature of old age (and maybe even the excesses of his alcoholism). This verticality contained in the stripes on the bed cover (which contain enough detail to suggest it's a patchwork quilt), the clock, the door and the picture frames, lead the eye upwards, yet he will soon be horizontal. It is a metaphor for life: we are all between the clock and the bed, a rock and a hard place.

Munch's painting contains all the things that may have been important to him in life – bright colour and artworks on the wall (portraits within portraits, including one of a woman, although her presence is particularly ephemeral). But it is also a momento mori. Life is fleeting and we are all heading towards death. The clock and the bed take up prominent positions – time is marching on but soon it will cease to hold any power over the artist, and the bed will be his final place on earth.

Andrew Graham Dixon said this painting is "compromised by a certain weakness and vapidity", but I disagree. I think the lack of detail suggests the ephemeral nature of life and lends power to the central figure. Munch portrays the room as he sees it: the world is receding from him. Staring ahead, his stiff posture mirrors the grandfather clock and Munch cuts a tall figure. His face is the most detailed aspect of the painting, its shape not unlike that of the face in The Scream (obviously a self portrait too).

Who is he looking at? Is he facing his maker? Himself? Or is he looking at us? Where will we be looking when it's our time?