Norway had long been under the influence of German aesthetics. Until 1870, Norwegian artists usually went to Dusseldorf to study and pursue a career. Later, they went to Paris, Berlin, Munich and Karlsruhe. But by 1880, Paris had become the center. And so it was that Munch, in 1885, undertaking his first journey at twenty-two, was led to discover French art and the Symbolist spirit. It was in these circumstances that Munch's personal neurosis entered the ambit of cultural anxiety expressed in Symbolist art.