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The Scream
An agonized figure wails against a blood red
Oslofjord skyline in Edvard Munch's The Scream
(1893), National Gallery, Oslo.The Scream (Skrik,
1893) is a seminal expressionist painting by
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Regarded by many
as his most important work, it is said by some
to symbolize modern man taken by an attack of
existential angst. The landscape in the background
is Oslofjord, viewed from the hill of Ekeberg.
The Norwegian word skrik is usually translated
as "scream", but is cognate with the
English shriek. Occasionally, the painting has
been called The Cry.
Munch executed four versions
of the painting, of which the most famous are
a tempera on cardboard version (measuring 83.5
x 66 cm) formerly in the Munch Museum, Oslo,
Norway (shown below), and an oil, tempera, and
pastel on cardboard (measuring 91 x 73.5 cm)
in the National Gallery (shown to right), also
in Oslo. A third version is also owned by the
Munch Museum, and a fourth is owned by Petter
Olsen. Munch later also translated the picture
into a lithograph (shown below), so the image
could be reproduced in reviews all over the world.
However, one version is currently missing from
the Munch Museum, having been stolen by art thieves
in August 2004.
Sources of inspiration
Munch wrote, concerning the image:
"I was walking along
a path with two friends - the sun was setting
- suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused,
feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence -
there was blood and tongues of fire above the
blue-black fjord and the city - my friends
walked on, and I stood there trembling with
anxiety - and I
sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
This has led some commentators
to propose that the person in the painting is
not screaming, but reacting with despair to the
scream passing through nature.
The scene is from a road overlooking
Oslo, the Oslofjord and Hovedøya, from
the hill of Ekeberg. At the time of painting
the work Munch's manic depressive sister Laura
Cathrine was interned in the mental hospital
at the foot of Ekeberg.
In 2003, astronomers claimed
to have identified the time that the painting
depicted. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 caused
unusually intense sunsets throughout Europe in
the winter of 1883-4, which Munch captured in
his picture.
In 1978, the renowned Munch
scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange,
sexless creature in the foreground of the painting
was probably inspired by a Peruvian mummy which
Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition
Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was crouching
in fetal position with its hands alongside its
face, also struck the imagination of Munch's
friend Paul Gauguin: it stood model for the central
figure in his painting Human misery (Grape harvest
at Arles) and for the old woman at the left in
his painting Where Do We Come From? What Are
We? Where Are We Going?. More recently, an Italian
anthropologist speculated that Munch might have
seen a mummy in Florence's Museum of Natural
History which bears an even more striking resemblance
to the painting.
 Thefts
On August 22, 2004 this version, executed in
tempera on cardboard, was stolen from the Munch
Museum, Oslo, at gunpoint.
Thieves taking paintings from
the Munch Museum, August 2004On 12 February 1994
the National Gallery's Scream was stolen. Initially
the theft was linked to various anti-abortion
groups active in Norway, but this turned out
to be false. After three months, the painting
was offered back to the Norwegian government
for a ransom of USD $1 million. The ransom was
refused, but the painting was nevertheless recovered
on 7 May, following a sting operation organised
by the Norwegian police with assistance from
the British Police and the Getty Museum.
On August 22, 2004, the Munch
Museum's Scream was stolen at gunpoint, along
with Munch's Madonna. Museum officials expressed
hope that they would see the painting again,
theorizing that perhaps the thieves would seek
ransom money. The paintings are still missing.
On April 8, 2005, Norwegian police arrested a
suspect in connection with the theft[3]. On April
28, 2005, it was rumoured that the two paintings
had been burnt by the thieves to conceal evidence[4].
On June 1, 2005, the City Government of Oslo
offered a reward of 2 million Norwegian kroner
(about USD $320,000) for information that could
help locate the paintings. Edvard Munch's masterpiece "The
Scream" was apparently undamaged in a 2004
robbery. "The other ("The Scream")
looked in okay condition."
(Thomas Nataas)
 Role
in popular culture
Robert Fishbone's inflatable ScreamIn the late
20th century, The Scream acquired iconic status
in popular culture. In 1983-1984, pop artist
Andy Warhol made a series of silk prints of works
by Munch, including The Scream. The idea was
to desacralize the painting by devaluating its
originality and making it into a mass-reproducible
object. However, as remarked above, Munch had
already begun that process himself, by making
a lithograph of the work for reproduction.
Characteristic of post-modern
art is Erró's ironic and irreverent treatment
of Munch's masterpiece in his acrylic paintings
The Second Scream (1967) and Ding Dong (1979).
Munch translated The Scream
into lithograph in 1895 so that it could be reproduced
all over the world.The work's reproduction on
all kinds of items, from tee shirts to coffee
mugs, bears witness to its iconic status as well
as to its complete desacralization in the eyes
of today's public. In that respect, it is comparable
to other iconic works of art, such as Leonardo
da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The Scream is an emotionally
very potent work, and the banalization of the
image in popular culture can be interpreted as
an attempt to defuse the feeling of unease it
inevitabily provokes in the viewer, though some
would say that this interpretation is overcomplication,
and that the makers of merchandise are simply
trying to make money off a well known image.
 An
American muralist, Robert Fishbone, discovered
a gap in the market when in 1991 he started selling
inflatable dolls of the central figure in the
painting. His St. Louis-based company, On The
Wall Productions, has sold hundreds of thousands
of them. Critics have observed that by taking
the figure out of its context (the landscape),
Fishbone has destroyed the unity of Munch's work,
thereby neutralizing its expressive force.
As one of very few works of
modern art that are instantly recognizable even
to people who know very little about art, The
Scream has been used in advertising, in cartoons
and on television. In one of her talk shows,
Dame Edna Everage appeared in a Scream-patterned
dress. The work has also fascinated film makers.
Ghostface, the psychotic murderer in Wes Craven's
Scream horror movies, wears a Halloween mask
inspired by the central figure in the painting.
Child actor Macaulay Culkin's pose in front of
the mirror, in Home Alone by Chris Columbus,
also refers ironically to Munch's work.
Name: |
The
Scream |
 |
Year: |
1893 |
Type: |
Oil, Pastel,
and casein on cardboard, 91
x 73.5 cm |
Collection: |
Nasjonalgalleriet,
Oslo |
|
|
Name: |
The
Scream |
 |
Year: |
1893 |
Type: |
Oil, 37
7/8" x 30 5/8" |
Collection: |
National
Gallery, Oslo |
|
|
|
|
