The Scream (1893)
National Museum of Norway, Oslo
Agonised figure on a bridge under a blood-red sky; exists in several painted, pastel and print versions
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Art
Edvard Munch
1863–1944 · Norwegian
Symbolism / Expressionism
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose psychologically raw images of anxiety, love, jealousy, illness and death made him a key forerunner of Expressionism. His most famous image, The Scream, has become a universal symbol of modern angst.
How to spot them
- ▸Swirling, wavy lines and lurid, unnatural colours (blood-red skies, sickly greens) expressing inner emotion
- ▸Mask-like, ghostly faces; lone figures on a road, bridge or shoreline by the Oslofjord
- ▸Themes of death, sickness, sexual anxiety and jealousy, grouped in his cycle The Frieze of Life
- ▸Quiz clue pattern: Norway, Oslo (Kristiania), angst, the Frieze of Life, or thefts of The Scream
Key works
Madonna (1894–1895)
National Museum of Norway and Munch Museum, Oslo (versions)
Sensual, bare-breasted woman with a red halo; the Munch Museum version was stolen with The Scream in 2004
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Sick Child (1885–1886)
National Museum of Norway, Oslo
Recalls the death of his sister Sophie from tuberculosis; a later version is in Tate
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Vampire (Love and Pain) (1895)
Munch Museum, Oslo (one of several versions)
Red-haired woman bending over a man's neck; a critic's reading gave it the name Vampire
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The Dance of Life (1899–1900)
National Museum of Norway, Oslo
Couples dance by the shore, flanked by a woman in white and a woman in black; a key Frieze of Life work
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Puberty (1894–1895)
National Museum of Norway, Oslo
Naked girl sitting on a bed with an ominous shadow looming behind her
Image: Edvard Munch · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •Munch's mother died of tuberculosis when he was five, and his sister Sophie when he was fourteen
- •The Scream's original German title was Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature)
- •The Scream was stolen from Oslo's National Gallery in 1994, on the opening day of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics
- •The Scream and Madonna were stolen at gunpoint from the Munch Museum in 2004 and recovered in 2006
- •An 1895 pastel version of The Scream sold at Sotheby's New York in 2012 for about $119.9 million
- •In 1937 the Nazis removed dozens of his works from German museums as "degenerate art"
- •His monumental paintings, including The Sun, decorate the Aula (assembly hall) of the University of Oslo
- •The Munch Museum reopened in a new waterfront building, MUNCH, in Bjørvika, Oslo, in 2021
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Sources
- Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Norway) — Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life
- Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Norway) — Edvard Munch, Madonna
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Edvard Munch