Today, there are many paintings where hundreds of people wait in line for hours to see themselves. Since these works find a lot of space in the media, almost everyone is familiar with them. However, very few of us are familiar with the experiences that develop behind the works and are almost complementary.
In order to make up for this shortcoming, we convey the details and stories of famous drawings to you. We have told you the details of the Kanagawa Wave and Christina’s World, which we come across in every corner of the internet before. Now we’re looking at The Scream.
In this work, which includes a character with an open mouth and is called Scream, things are different from what they seem.
Because the figure looking at us here is not screaming in dismay. On the contrary, he hears another scream and tries to protect himself by covering his ears against it.
We will get to the basis of this in a moment, but first let’s take a look at the details of the work created by Edvard Munch.
There are simply 3 elements in front of us.
We can show them as sky, fjord and bridge. At least the back sides of the bridge have a realistic image, while the rest of the painting is full of unrealistic elements.
The intermingling of red, orange, blue and yellow in the sky draws attention. In the fjord, if you look carefully, you can see the ships behind.
On the bridge, there is the main character who looks directly at us and whose shape is almost twisted into the background, and there are two figures in the background who seem not to know much about our main character.
There is also an article in the corner of this work, the mystery of which was solved years later.
- Infrared camera view of the text hidden in the work
We can translate this article into our language as “Can only be painted by a madman”.
It was thought that the statement in question was originally written by someone who did not like Munch. But after a while it turned out that it was Munch himself who wrote it.
- Edvard Munch
The reason for this is shown to be the constant vilification and humiliation of Munch’s understanding of art by the critics.
As a result, it is thought that the artist added such an ironic expression to the painting. Because mental problems were Munch’s nightmare, and such stigmas did not bother him.
But then we can say he embraced it
- Edvard Munch
From here we move on to the life of the artist. This part is important because the whole meaning of the work in question is hidden here.
Munch was born in Norway in 1863. Life in the 1800s and 1900s was deepening the divide between rich and poor because of the incredibly rapid development of technology.
In this context, the rich added wealth to their wealth, while the poor were simply looking for something to hold on to, and life in this context was very difficult for the vast majority of the population.
But Munch had much bigger problems to deal with.
- Edvard Munch
First of all, Munch had been battling constant illnesses since his birth. It’s worth remembering that the late 1800s and 1900s were when even a small tuberculosis could be fatal.
Unfortunately, due to tuberculosis, Munch also lost loved ones at an early age. His mother died when he was 5 years old, and his sister died when he was 14.
- Illustration of The Sick Child depicting Munch’s sister, Sophie, who died of tuberculosis
His other sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was admitted to a mental hospital. Although his brother managed to become a doctor and reached the age of 30, he too died of pneumonia.
At a time when it was already difficult to catch up with the pace of life, he also had to deal with them.
- Christian Munch on the Couch
Munch’s father is known to tell ghost stories to children in his mother’s absence. The fact that family members faced mental problems and lost their lives also scared Munch about mental problems.
Speaking of his father…
- Munch’s father sketch (Christian Munch with a Pipe)
Munch’s father was also suffering from severe depression. Besides, he was deeply religious and did not for a moment support Munch’s turn to painting.
In addition, he described what happened to his family members as punishments for such sins.
Of course, someone would have to show up and guide Munch, who had grown up in so much confusion.
- Hans Jaeger
That person was Hans Jæger, a member of the Kristiania Bohemians group. He told Munch that he needed to step out of the conventional understanding of art of the time.
Besides, he is an activist. The aim of the group he was involved in was roughly to say to the bourgeois of the time, “take off those blinders” in many areas of his art.
After this point, the artist’s hard brush strokes and intense emotion transfer were harshly criticized by the wealthy segment of the time. But Munch continued down this road.
After some ups and downs, our path now crosses with the Scream.
- Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh)
In 1889, Munch settled in France for 3 years, where he was exposed to impressionism. In this movement, the moment in the image is expressed by the use, transition and brush strokes of light and colors. We can see this in The Scream as well.
Apart from France, he received significant criticism in Germany, which affected his career.
He created The Frieze of Life collection, which also includes The Scream, here in France.
- Melancholy (from The Frieze of Life collection)
Of course, we will not pile up the 22 works in the collection here. But let’s explain the purpose of the collection.
This collection depicts themes such as love, anxiety and death. You can also see the experience in the works in the collection.
Scream is only one of these works that tells about the events that took place.
Munch produced ‘The Scream’ in 1893. Everything will become clear in our minds when we listen to the following article in his diary dated January 22, 1892:
“I was walking down the road with two of my friends as the sun was setting. Suddenly, the sky turned blood red. My friends kept walking, while I stood there anxiously, feeling as if a powerful, endless scream was running through nature.”
We won’t know how true that cry is, but it clearly affected Munch deeply.
Because of this part taken from the diary, the figure in the middle is believed to represent Munch.
So why did he draw such a flat character and not himself directly?
There is no common truth for this, but there is an opinion that the vast majority agree with (and I personally agree with).
According to this idea, Munch used this gender-neutral character, which lacks many distinctive human characteristics, to show that emotions such as anxiety do not belong only to himself or to a certain group, but that people from anywhere can face it.
In other words, we can say that he chose such a character in order to show the universality of emotions such as anxiety, pressure, fear and love. Of course, different inferences can be made.
- Anxiety
In addition, it is possible to come across facial expressions like this in the paintings made by Munch, in which many people are in.
Because we can all feel alone in the crowd, regardless of time. When this feeling of loneliness is combined with different emotions, a state of alienation occurs in the mind, as in Munch’s works.
In other words, our mind separates from the people around us and mixes with our environment. If you look carefully at the head of the main character in The Scream, you can see that he is following a direction towards the current and it goes up to the sky. Just like in the case we mentioned.
A few interesting facts about the work and the artist:
- There are 4 different versions of Scream. The reason for this is that the artist wanted to donate his collection of The Frieze of Life to a museum in Oslo after his death. For this reason, he created different versions of the same works at different times and always kept the collection ‘complete’.
- Two of these 4 versions were previously stolen and recovered.
- Of these versions drawn with different techniques, the pastel one was auctioned for almost $120 million in 2012.
- Munch’s works were not tolerated in Nazi Germany and were not shown in exhibitions.
- But he died in 1944 and the fact that the Nazis made his funeral (Norway was under German rule at that time) brought some doubts. But it is said that this was done specifically by the Nazis to tarnish his image.
- It’s strange enough that this group, which already describes their art as ‘degenerate’, is holding a funeral for Munch’s sake.
- Unfortunately, he did not see the salvation of his country from the Nazi scourge.
What are your thoughts about the work? You can share your ideas in the comment section.
- Sources: Smart History, Great Art Explained, EdvardMunch.org, Mozart Cultures, Tidsskrifet, CNN, Sue Prideaux, Totally History, Sons of Norway, Britannica, MUNCH
- Image Sources: Smart History, The Story of Art
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