This painting shows a group of people walking in a nocturnal ambience on Karl Johans gate, the main street of the city of Oslo. It is one of the first works incorporated by Munch into his cycle The Frieze of Life

In the background to the right is the Storting building (which houses the parliament of Norway) and 2 imposing poplars. On the left is a line of houses with mostly lighted windows. Some pedestrians are walking in front of the houses, who are all dressed in somber clothes, their pale-yellow faces look frozen and distorted, and their round eyes widely open

Art historians have commented that the figures depicted here represent fear and hostility. Munch wrote in his diary about an experience in Paris: “I was outside again, on the Boulevard des Italiens with these thousands of strange faces who appeared so ghostly and in a light that was artificial”

Munch exhibited this work for the first time in September 1892, which was described in a newspaper as “squarely insane.” Public criticism on the painting was severe and the artist was thought to be sick