The Scream

The Scream

The Scream painting by Edward Munch is one of the most well-known pieces of artwork in history, appealing to a wide audience even today. There are actually four different originalversions of The Scream that Edward Much created using different art mediums including oil paints, tempera, and pastels. The Scream is part of a larger art collection series that Edward Munch called TheFrieze of Life.
In The Scream’s timeless image is a genderless person with a pale face, standing beside a railing with an expansive view of a chaotic environment. What is so gripping about the image isthat the person is screaming, his mouth hung wide open with his hands on the sides of his face, and you can see that scream reflected and continuing on the distance of the intensely bloody red,orange, deep blue, and black colored background. Two people stand with their backs turned to the screaming figure, with their black silhouettes on the edge of the scene. Far in the distance there is a hintof a small city, almost completely lost in the swirling sky.
Norwegian by birth, Edward Munch studied at the Oslo Academy with famous Norwegian artist Christian Krohg. He created the first version ofThe Scream in 1893 when he was about 30 years old, and made the fourth and final version of The Scream in 1910. He had described himself in a book written in 1900 as nearly going insane, like hissister Laura who was committed to a mental institution during this time period as well. Personally he discussed being pushed to his limits, and going through a very dark moment in his life.
The scene ofThe Scream was based on a real place located on the hill of Ekeberg, Norway, on a path with a safety railing. The faint city and landscape represent the view of Oslo and the Oslo Fjord. At the bottomof the Ekeberg hill was the madhouse where Edward Munch’s sister was kept, and near was also a slaughterhouse. Some accounts describe that in those times you could actually hear the cries of...