Why is the dying child not visible in Death in the Sick Room?

In the painting Death in the Sick Room (1893), the dying child is not visible because Edvard Munch intentionally shifts the focus away from the subject of death itself. Instead, the composition centers on the living figures present in the room, capturing their individual experiences of grief and their inability to communicate or provide consolation to one another.1

By excluding the dying child from the viewer's sight, Munch emphasizes the themes of isolation and loneliness that permeate the scene, further heightened by the claustrophobic, enclosed space and the painting's steeply rushing perspective.1