This painting is regarded as one of the most important, social realistic painting in Denmark. Moreover it has had a great influence.
Influence internationally Edvard Munch Brendekilde's most famous painting is
Udslidt (
Worn Out). He painted it for the World Exposition in Paris 1889, the 100 years celebration of the French Revolution. In the catalogue it is called Au Secours. It was exhibited in Copenhagen 1890, Munich 1891 (Zu Hülfe) and Chicago 1893 (Worn Out). Since then it has been permanently exhibited at
Brandts in Odense.
Worn Out was again exhibited in Groningen and in Munich in 2012 and 2013. This painting is monumental (207 x 270 cm) and in the centre a woman is screaming over a dead man, worn out due to hard labour in the still feudal and poor, rural society. Edvard Munch had several Danish friends and he often visited and stayed in Copenhagen. One of his good, Danish friends, the painter
Johan Rohde, accompanied him to the great Exhibition of Nordic Painters in Copenhagen in 1888, when Brendekilde was represented with 5 paintings, among these his large and almost impressionistic
Forår (Spring), a painting of a forest with anemones and a young couple and mounted in one of his impressive arts and crafts frames. Munch had two paintings at this exhibition. In those years Munch was in his naturalistic-impressionistic period and he must have seen Brendekilde's big and magnificent paintings. In Paris 1889 Brendekilde was represented by
Worn Out and three other paintings, and Munch had one painting at this exhibition. Edvard Munch lived in Paris and visited the World Exhibition several times. Brendekilde also visited the exhibition. The paintings of both artists were in the same building “
Palais des Beaux Arts” first floor.
Worn Out was in the room “Denmark” and Munch's painting
Morning is in the room “Norway”. The same entrance led to these two rooms, and there was no door between them. Thus Munch could not avoid seeing
Worn Out, the monumental painting with ”the scream” in the centre.
Worn Out even received a silver medal. One must remember that through all his life Munch suffered from fear of death. His mother and sister died in 1868 and 1877 and his father died in November 1889, at the same time when he saw
Worn Out with the dead man and his wife screaming. From now on Munch may have seen
Worn Out one or two times more as well as printed copies and have discussed it with his friends or Rohde in Denmark.
Worn Out was exhibited in Copenhagen in 1890. It is not certain but possible that Munch visited this exhibition. In Munich 1891 Brendekilde was represented by
Worn Out (German
Zu Hülfe) and one of his Winter Landscapes. He received a gold medal. Munch had 3 paintings at this exhibition. It is doubtful but possible that Munch visited this exhibition. Brendekilde's scream seems to be the first scream of a living person mentioned by name in the history of painting. It depicts a living person's reaction to a state of society. The names of both models are well known and they were wife and husband. In 1889–1891 (probably 1889) Munch made a preliminary sketch for the scream – “ Mann som går langs en vei” – with a lonely old worn out man walking with a stick alone in a road in a flat Danish landscape with trees in the background, reminding one very much of
Worn Out. One can also compare it with the preliminary study to
Worn Out. This preliminary study is
Stensamlere or
Stone Collectors, painted between 1883 and 1887. In
Stone Collectors, three persons and an old man stand between furrows similar to the road lines in Munch's sketch. Four years passed after the painting of
Worn Out (1889) before Munch painted
The Scream ("Skrik") in 1893. Munch had many strange explanations of the background for
The Scream. Studies of letters, notes and sketches by Munch do not give much information concerning other artists. To art historians and Munch specialists this research and theory is totally new. Munch was from the beginning inspired by Brendekilde's original scream in
Worn Out, which he transformed into his symbolistic scream of desperation, alienation and anxiety in the new state of society. It is probably a self-portrait. There is a direct line from Munch's
Scream to the well-known screams later in the 20. century (
Pablo Picasso,
Francis Bacon,
Asger Jorn,
Andy Warhol etc.). In 2007
Max Ginsburg painted
War Pieta, which reminds one of
Worn Out.
Gustav Vigeland Vigeland is the most famous sculptor in Norway. Most people know him from his more than 200 sculptures in
Frogner Park in
Oslo. Early in his life he made two small sculptures screaming:
Fear (1892) and
Old Man (1893). Both are exhibited in The National Museum in Oslo. His inspiration for making these two screaming sculptures in miniature has been a mystery, but he was an apprentice in Copenhagen from the first week in 1891–1892 in the workshop of the Danish sculptor
Vilhelm Bissen, who among others was a professor at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Charlottenborg. Brendekilde and Bissen knew each other very well; they were both educated as sculptors and exhibited their works at the same exhibitions during this period. E.g. Brendekilde showed
Worn Out and Bissen showed two sculptures at Charlottenborg in Copenhagen in 1890.
Worn Out was alternately shown outside Denmark and back again in 1891–1893. Vigeland exhibited his sculpture at Charlottenborg in 1892. It would have been difficult for Gustav Vigeland not to become acquainted with the scream of
Worn Out.
Axel Gallén Brian Dudley Barrett in his Ph.D. thesis 2008 mentions Brendekilde (p. 48) and
Worn Out (p. 25) and calls attention to the similarity between the position of the bodies in
Worn Out and
Axel Gallén's famous ''
Lemminkäinen's Mother''(1897). In both cases the bodies form a triangle and the woman is sitting up, the dead man lying down. In both cases the woman turns her head and eyes towards God or the light from the sun. Lemminkäinen's mother does not scream, but she is also a sorceress having the situation under control, sewing her dead son together and wakening him to life again. Axel Gallén is originally a painter of social realism like Brendekilde but later he changes his style and becomes a symbolistic painter. In this case he illustrates song XV in Kalevala - the Finnish heroic legend - where Lemminkäinen is the young hero. At The World Exposition, Paris 1889, Gallén had four oil paintings in Palais des Beaux Arts where
Worn Out was exhibited. He was in Paris in May 1889 and must have seen
Worn Out. As a painter of social realism he immediately understood the message of Brendekilde and also realized the double nature of the scream coming from a worn out person or as an omen of a fight reflecting that the persons in
Worn Out are heroes like Lemminkäinen and his mother. ==Selected paintings==