Comment:
Several versions of War and Peace indicate that the subjects had already preoccupied Munch whilst he was working on designs for the University Festival Hall. In an exhibition at Blomqvist in October 1918 he showed a couple of drawings of the subjects and they were dated to 1913 in the catalogue. The outbreak of the First World War made the theme immediately relevant, and this drawing fits in with other works where Munch comments upon the war.

Thematically, War and Peace or The Storm and The Rainbow belong with The Human Mountain, which was Munch’s first proposal for the main panel in the University Festival Hall (the Aula). As this was rejected by the jury, further work on the theme was set aside, but by no means abandoned. In the 1920s he returned to the thematic cycle and used The Storm and The Rainbow as side panels for The Human Mountain.

It appears that the titles War and Peace were mainly used when the First World War was still raging, whereas The Storm and The Rainbow were preferred later. (GW)