The Scream
The Scream
Edvard Munch · 1893
01
1893. One figure. Hands to its head.
Munch made The Scream four times.
This is the one in Oslo's National Museum.
02
Mouth open.
But in Munch's diary, it isn't the man who screams.
The scream passes through nature.
03
Behind him, two men on the road.
The diary again: his friends walked on.
He stood there, shaking.
04
Top left, in the red sky.
One line of pencil. Barely visible.
For decades, put down to a visitor or a critic.
In 2021 the museum matched the handwriting. Munch's own.
The whole scream.
Sky, fjord, road.
“Can only have been painted by a madman!”
12 February 1994
The Winter Olympics open at Lillehammer.
Thieves take this Scream from the National Gallery.
They leave a note mocking the security.
It comes back on 7 May. Undamaged.
In 2004, gunmen take another Scream from the Munch Museum.
That one is gone for two years.
Edvard Munch
Norwegian · Expressionism · 1863 to 1944
Sources · 6