“The Vampire’s Kiss” by Munch holds down one end of a hall in the Metropolitan Museum while a pre-Raphaelite Joan of Arc, her eyes glittering with all-of-sky, haunts the opposing corner. Not-God vs. God.

Rodin’s people struggle from marble in between–not quite flesh and not quite stone. A disappointingly small bronze of Balzac strides through it all. How can Balzac be that small?

In “The Vampire’s Kiss,” a title given by a critic and not Munch some say, a red-haired woman consumes the neck of a man that clings to her. One cannot help but notice the mad music in Munch’s paint strokes as the man’s black coat descends into a river of deep blue sparks. I wonder why Munch painted it that way?

But back to Strindberg, and women, and Valentines be they may. Strindberg: “I love her, and she loves me, and together we hate each other with a wild hatred born of love.”

It’s not Hallmark, but it’s not bad.