Vienna's Albertina Museum has reopened with an extensive exhibition of Edvard Munch's painting and graphic art, writes Marèse Murphy

At last the Albertina is up and running again. In a city where palaces from the balmy days of Empire are two-a-penny, this has to be one of the grandest. And, despite the damage inflicted by ferocious Allied bombardment at the end of the second World War, it has always been a prominent and much-favoured landmark in Vienna. With the passage of time, however, matters deteriorated, and it has taken eight years of massive renovation to make the monumental building ready for the public.

Now restored to life as a working museum, the Albertina re-opened a few months ago to the accompaniment of much hype and public acclaim. And, as the repository of the world's largest collection of graphic art - including the greatest known volume of Dürer's work in the field - the choice of Edvard Munch as the subject of its first major exhibition is singularly appropriate. For while there is no denying the aggressive power of his paintings, it is as a master of graphic art that the Norwegian painter makes his most memorable mark.

His woodcuts, lithographs and etching generally exercise more direct and immediate appeal than some of the big oil paintings, and his feeling for the base materials of his craft often results in his incorporation as an element of composition.

This is at once evident in the beguiling woodcut series entitled Towards the Forest.

The grainy pattern of the wood forms the integral component of the artistic concept, which is devoted to a pair of intertwined male and female figures moving forward towards a rampart of trees. As always, Munch practised variations on any theme he chose and while in this series the man is dressed in dark clothes throughout, in some versions the woman wears a long, pale robe, in others she appears to be naked - despite the scarcely discernible contour at her heels, which indicates a garment too diaphanous to afford concealment. The intimate juxtaposition of clothed and unclothed invites comment on the quaint social mores obtaining in remote regions of the imagination - And surely the poor woman must be cold?

The Scream is probably the most famous of all Munch's work, and possibly one of the most famous pictures in the world. Acute existential distress is externalised by the anguish of the open-mouthed figure in the foreground, and the dramatic conflict between straight and curved lines is heightened by the livid reds and sulphur yellows that dominate the colouring. But to my mind, the clean, uncompromising lineaments of the lithograph that followed a few years later convey a starker, scarier horror.

However, if it is clear that painting by no means represents the culmination of Edvard Munch's achievement, there were times when it got the upper hand. None of the later lithographs express the menace of The Vampire with the force of the 1893/4 oil studies in which sinister intent is almost tangible as the wretched creature bends forward, red hair straggling over her victim.

In fact, Munch was a virtuoso in whatever medium he employed, and this multi-faceted gift is demonstrated to triumphant effect in the celebrated Madonna cycle.

Like her latter-day namesake, this model became a cult image in her own time, attracting public enthusiasm and outrage in equal measure, and in a later age providing a stimulus for Andy Warhol's work. For contemporary viewers, there is nothing to shock and much to admire in the raven-haired three-quarter nude who reclines eyes closed, personifying lasciviousness with a serene confidence that defies moral criticism and scorns the cavilling of the righteous.

With true Nordic fervour, Munch delved deeply into the dark night of the soul for inspiration, vigorously exploiting the grim attributes of fear, jealousy, melancholy, loneliness and, inevitably, death. The mordant sequence devoted to the deathbed is boldly executed, constantly focusing more on the mourners than on the deceased: even in the watercolour showing the sick man rising unsteadily from a chair, the central figure is a pale and wraithlike sketch compared with those around him. Which was probably the case anyway.

Far more sensitive and moving are the many exquisite studies of The Sick Child. Their tenderness and pathos derive directly from personal experience, as tuberculosis was rampant in the Munch family and carried off both the artist's mother and beloved sister at an early age. As a boy, he, too, suffered from the disease, but survived to grow into manhood and challenge the gods by contracting a condition that necessitated frequent incarceration in institutions caring for alcoholics. The vivid 1907 oil and black crayon painting of The First Glass says it all.

For the wayward man, art itself was a source of illness and inebriation. "A sickness of which I do not want to be cured," he said, "and an intoxication which I need." This unhealthy if artistically fruitful attitude may account for Munch's treatment of his own work, which he exposed to wind, rain, sunshine snow or whatever weather was going. He invited visitors to "Go ahead and trample all over them . . . it will only make them better." After his death in 1944, the 1,100 pictures found in his studio were in an appalling state, requiring an immense amount of rescue and restoration, including removal of vast quantities of bird excrement.

But the output was prolific, and if there is rarely anywhere to go for a laugh, occasionally the standard Nordic gloom is alleviated by a mood tentatively approaching good humour.

Despite the brooding presence of a sombre-visaged female, there is an overriding and soothing tranquillity in the evocation of moonlight that distinguishes the series of that name. And there is infectious - almost comic, excitement in the energy and brilliant illumination of The Storm as a tall tree bends before the wind while in the foreground human figures hang on to their hats or clap their hands over their ears. Perhaps as a mellowing consequence of maturity, best of all is the unexpected and affectionate cheerfulness animating the delightful collection of Girls on the Pier.

The setting is a small village outside Oslo. The colours are bright except for some dark green foliage in the middle and this is wholly counteracted by white houses in the background and blue sky overhead. There are a dozen versions of this picture - some woodcuts, some lithographs, some oils - and each one is different.

All of them, however, embody the supple grace and ease of youth, its dreams and eager aspirations, with the girls wearing pretty summer dresses of red or green or white and sporting straw hats or headscarves. Whether they are leaning pensively over the railing of the pier in twos or threes, or gathered in a gaggle avid for gossip, there is not a whiff of care about them; nor any hint that life might be anything other than joyous. I hope they were right!

The Munch Exhibition in the Vienna Albertina continues until June 22nd.