Finally got to the Museum of Modern Art to see Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul. A survey of the Norwegian painter’s career, the exhibiton reveals that Munch was clearly a very soulful guy who lived a life of passion and pain.

"We do not want to paint pretty pictures to be hung on drawing-room walls," Munch said. "We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of, an art that gives something to humanity. An art that arrests and engages. An art created of one’s innermost heart."

Innermost heart. You got me at hello. I love a guy who can really express what’s going on in his head. And, oy, Munch lays it all out – in paintings that reek of mania and despair. With swirling landscapes and dark scenes in illicit rooms, the paintings convey a life lived in a heightened state of emotional drama and turmoil: love affairs, drinking, illness, angst.

Conspicuously missing from the show is Munch’s most iconic work. "The Scream" has been reproduced and parodied to death. It’s absence prevented the show from feeling like a greatest hits parade — one of those super shows where people crowd around the most famous work and ignore everything else.

Perhaps the most moving works were the last self-portraits on display. Munch painted himself at every stage of his life. The final one, "Standing Between the Clock and the Bed," shows the artist looking bedraggled and frail. On the precipice of death, he seems ready to let go of a life spent passionately painting the world from within.