Analysis of the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. "The Scream" by Munch

Experts call this painting the second most popular after the unrivaled La Gioconda. Only Leonardo da Vinci left us a legacy of the secret of a smile, but Edvard Munch shared darker emotions. The painting “The Scream” is considered the quintessence of human despair, loneliness, and suffering. A trail of real and fictitious tragic stories only reinforces the gloomy aura of the canvas.

Threads stretch from childhood

Indeed, much can be explained by the artist’s childhood. It would be hard to call him happy. The mother of the future Norwegian classic of expressionism died when little Edward was five. The fourteen-year-old teenager experienced the next death even more deeply. His sister died of consumption. Pain, despair, inability to save a loved one - these emotions permeate Munch's childhood memories. They will then fill the artist’s paintings. Mental illness - manic-depressive psychosis - will also leave its mark.

The history of the painting "Scream"

Munch almost always described events, thoughts and feelings that anticipated the creation of the next painting. There is also very specific information about the painting of the famous painting. The artist in his diary tells how he was walking with two of his friends at sunset and suddenly the sky, which had turned blood red, seemed to crush him. Munch describes in detail the feeling of almost mortal fatigue that overwhelmed him. It seemed to him at that moment that an endless cry of despair pierced him and the surrounding nature. Hence the very first name of the canvas: “The Scream of Nature.”

At the same time, some researchers of the Norwegian master’s work interpret the gesture of the asexual creature depicted on the canvas as protective. So a person covers his ears so as not to hear the strong noise that tears at his peace of mind. In addition, the effect of the bloody sky that the artist observed could have been a consequence of the eruption. The painting “The Scream” demonstrates that red eerie hue of the sky that was characteristic of Europe from November 1883 to February 1884. All this time, a blanket of volcanic ash hung in the atmosphere.

Description of the masterpiece

The canvas is recognizable all over the world, but if you ask a random museum visitor what it depicts, the answer you will get is reminiscent of a character from the horror film of the same name. By the way, his appearance was borrowed from Munch’s masterpiece, which the filmmakers did not hide.

Let's still look at a detailed description of the painting "The Scream". Its composition is simple and concise. The straight diagonal of the bridge and two realistic figures of men in the distance contrast with the humanoid, smoothly curved figure in the center of the canvas. The surrounding space: the sky, the river - also seem to wriggle and twist. The creature on the canvas can only hardly be called a person, because it most closely resembles a hairless, withered mummy with hollows in the eye sockets and mouth. The creature clutches its head with its long-fingered palms and silently screams. Only now no one reacts to his cry. The figures confidently move away into the distance along the bridge, without feeling despair or horror. Even the eerie sky, as if burning in a bloody fire, is unable to shake their calm.

At the same time, in the manner of writing, the painting “Scream” seems almost like a sketch, furious and careless. But in reality there is no rush at all. Munch created carefully and thoughtfully. He was so carried away by the plot that he created several versions of the canvas.

A little mysticism

As mentioned above, there is an evil trail behind the picture. Some believe that this is some kind of curse. Indeed, several tragic incidents involving the owners of the painting or the unfortunate people who came into direct contact with the painting give rise to unpleasant thoughts.

And if cases of severe depression and mental disorders can still be explained by excessive impressionability, then how to explain the most famous case of a museum employee is unclear. A museum employee was tasked with rehanging the painting, but in the process he accidentally dropped it. The curse overtook the victim a week later. An employee was involved in a terrible car accident. The painting “The Scream” did not spare the other poor fellow who could not hold it in his hands. This employee began to suffer from unbearable migraines, which drove the unfortunate man to suicide.

Worldwide fame

But even this not the kindest aura did not extinguish interest in the canvas. On the contrary, all the horrors that were told about the canvas only fueled interest in it.

This fact is clearly confirmed by the auction held in the spring of 2012. It displayed one of the Scream variants. It went away in a record 12 minutes of trading for a record nearly $200 million. The future owner was not deterred by the unenviable fate of the canvas’s previous owners.

In addition, she replicated the image created by Munch. Famous (and not so famous) contemporary artists give their interpretations, which are recognizable as the painting “The Scream”. The description of the famous screaming creature can be guessed in the already mentioned horror film. The famous father of cartoon star Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, even appeared in the show.

Artist: Edvard Munch
Title of the painting: “Scream”
Painting: 1893

Size: 91 × 73.5 cm

Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream"

Artist: Edvard Munch
Title of the painting: “Scream”
Painting: 1893
Cardboard, oil, tempera, pastel
Size: 91 × 73.5 cm

The Scream is considered a landmark of Expressionism and one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Munch wrote 4 versions of “The Scream”, and there is a version that this painting is the fruit of manic-depressive psychosis from which the artist suffered.

The sale of this painting once set an absolute record on the art market and at Sotheby's auction in particular. The expected high price for the famous painting turned out to be higher than the bravest experts expected! However, this record was soon broken...

“The Scream” is the master’s most famous work, a well-known iconic image in 20th-century painting. Munch conveys the sudden horror that gripped the hero through the color scheme and with the help of writhing lines that seem to entangle the screaming man.

Already at the beginning of his career, Munch’s exhibition caused a scandal and was closed ahead of schedule: the public was not ready to perceive the heavy atmosphere of his paintings.

Munch, who suffered from mental illness, saw the world in a special way: he introduced into painting the denial of the harmony of colors and shapes, and imbued his works with the philosophy of disappointment and loneliness.

The painting “The Scream” once fell into the hands of thieves: in 2004, armed attackers stole the painting from the museum. The painting was damaged - there were traces of moisture on it, the canvas was torn. And despite this, collectors considered it an honor to have “Scream” in their collection.

On January 23, the art world marks 150 years since the death of Norwegian expressionist artist Edvard Munch. The most famous of his paintings, “The Scream,” was executed in four versions. All the paintings in this series are shrouded in mystical stories, and the artist’s intention has not yet been fully understood.

Munch himself, explaining the idea of the painting, admitted that he depicted a “cry of nature.” "I was walking along the road with friends. The sun was setting. The sky turned blood red. I was overcome with melancholy. I stood dead tired against the backdrop of the dark blue. The fjord and the city hung in fiery tongues of flame. I fell behind my friends. Trembling with fear, I heard cry of nature,” these words are engraved by the artist’s hand on the frame framing one of the canvases.

Art critics and historians have interpreted differently what was depicted in the painting. According to one version, the sky could have turned blood red due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883. Volcanic ash turned the sky reddish, a phenomenon that could be observed in the eastern United States, Europe and Asia from November 1883 to February 1884. Munch could also observe it.

According to another version, the painting was the result of the artist’s mental disorder. Munch suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, and throughout his life he was tormented by fears and nightmares, depression and loneliness. He tried to drown out his pain with alcohol, drugs and, of course, transferred it to the canvas - four times. “Illness, madness and death are black angels who stood guard over my cradle and accompanied me all my life,” Munch wrote about himself.

Existential horror, piercing and panicky - that’s what is depicted in the picture, art critics say. It is so strong that it literally falls on the viewer, who himself suddenly turns into a figure in the foreground, covering his head with his hands - to protect himself from the “scream”, real or fictitious.

Some tend to see "Scream" as a prophecy. Thus, co-chairman of the board of directors of Sotheby's auction David Norman, who was lucky enough to sell one of the paintings in the series for $120 million, expressed the opinion that Munch in his works predicted the 20th century with its two world wars, the Holocaust, environmental disasters and nuclear weapons .

There is a belief that all versions of Scream are cursed. The mysticism, according to art critic and Munch specialist Alexander Prufrock, is confirmed by real cases. Dozens of people who came into contact with the paintings in one way or another fell ill, quarreled with loved ones, fell into severe depression or died suddenly. All this gave the paintings a bad reputation. One day, a museum employee in Oslo accidentally dropped a painting. After some time, he began to have terrible headaches, the seizures became more severe, and in the end he committed suicide. Museum visitors still look at the painting with caution.

The figure of either a man or a ghost in “Scream” also caused a lot of controversy. In 1978, art critic Robert Rosenblum suggested curiously that the asexual creature in the foreground may have been inspired by the sight of a Peruvian mummy that Munch may have seen at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. To other commentators, she resembled a skeleton, an embryo, and even a sperm.

Munch's "Scream" is reflected in popular culture. The creator of the famous mask from the film "Scream" was inspired by the masterpiece of the Norwegian expressionist.

The most famous painting written by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is “The Scream”: the history of the creation of the painting is as significant as its name. This is one of the most famous paintings in the world, which even inspired the creators of the famous 1983 thriller film Scream of the same name.

Descriptions of the painting “The Scream” by various art historians often include a wide variety of assumptions about what the author wanted to express with his extremely unusual plot. And until now, experts have not been able to completely agree on opinions. But there are several facts about the history of the creation of the painting, as well as fairly reliable assumptions about the details of the image.

“Scream” - what inspired the artist?

Edvard Munch's painting undeniably expresses the extreme despair of the one character it depicts. According to some reports, the artist was a victim of mental illness. He is attributed to manic-depressive psychosis. Reproducing the plot depicted on the most recognizable canvas was his obsession, which he was able to get rid of only after undergoing a course of treatment at the clinic. But before that, the artist managed to create 40 copies of the painting, experiencing an unhealthy need to paint this image over and over again.

The canvas depicts a creature that is difficult to call with certainty a human, and it is also difficult to say exactly what gender this creature belongs to. He has a pear-shaped head, which he clasps with his hands, trying to cover his ears from his own scream. The grimace of a scream distorts the character’s face, which reflects pain and anguish. And it is impossible to say for sure whether these emotions are the cause or consequence of the scream, because the character’s pose clearly shows the tension with which he closes his ears, trying to hide from his own scream.

Initially, the painting was called “The Scream of Nature.” In this context, it seems quite plausible to assume that the central figure of the canvas symbolizes the author himself, who is trying to protect himself from the cry of nature, closing his ears from the existing or fictional noise that torments him.

According to one of the researchers of Munch's work, Robert Rosenblum, the prototype of the character depicted by the artist in the foreground was a mummy. Edvard Munch saw the mummy, which was an exhibit at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. The same exhibit at the exhibition is considered to be the item that captured the imagination of Munch’s friend, Paul Gauguin.

“Scream”: the plot of the picture

The author used expressionism to express the complexity and poignancy of the character's experiences. Blurred lines seem to vibrate, they are fuzzy, flowing into one another. It seems that the person looking at the painting has slightly blurred vision. This effect completely immerses the viewer in the plot: the character’s experiences. The viewer himself is plunged into the fog of despair and grief that the central figure experiences, and begins to experience the tension from which the hero suffers, as can be seen in the photo of Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream”.

What makes the hero of the picture scream, or what cries of nature he himself hears, can be guessed from the image of the landscape against which the central character is depicted. In addition to the fuzzy lines that convey the tense state of the hero and his experiences, you can find that the central figure and the image of the hero are in resonance. The lines that represent them practically merge into a single whole; it is almost impossible to detect the boundaries between them.

Context

“The Scream” is part of a series of paintings by Edvard Munch about life, death, love. Therefore, some experts attribute a mystical meaning to the central figure depicted in the picture: supposedly this is the artist’s own vision of the image of death. But in this case, what is even more inexplicable is why the character is in that despair. The same cycle of paintings included canvases by the artist in which the central characters have been changed, but are depicted against the backdrop of the same landscape with a blood-red sunset.

At the first exhibition, where the painting was presented to the public as part of a frieze, the audience did not accept it. The painting was met with protests, which the gallery owners managed to resolve only with the help of the police, as the disappointed crowd was ready to cause a pogrom.

Mystically minded art fans believe that “The Scream” is a cursed painting. Such thoughts are suggested by a number of coincidences, during which people who came into contact with the canvas encountered misfortunes, failures, and began to get sick.

For fans of the artist’s work who are interested in where the painting “The Scream” is located, it is difficult to give a definite answer, because the painting is presented in more than 40 copies. But its first version, written in 1893, is kept in the National Gallery in Oslo.

Why is the painting “The Scream” so striking?

The painting “The Scream” fascinates the modern viewer. Imagine what it was like for the 19th century public! Of course, they were very critical of her. The red sky of the painting was compared to the interior of a slaughterhouse.

Nothing surprising. The picture is extremely expressive. She appeals to a person’s deepest emotions. Awakens fear of loneliness and death.

And this was at a time when William Bouguereau was popular, who also sought to appeal to emotions. But even in scary scenes, he portrayed his heroes as divinely ideal. Even if we were talking about sinners in hell.

William Bouguereau. Dante and Virgil in Hell. 1850, Paris

Everything in Munch’s painting was decidedly contrary to accepted norms. Deformed space. Sticky, melting. Not a single straight line except the bridge railings.

And the main character is an unimaginably strange creature. Looks like an alien. True, in the 19th century they had not yet heard about aliens. This creature, like the space around it, loses its shape: it melts like a candle.

It was as if the world and its hero were submerged in water. After all, when we look at a person under water, his image is also wavy. And different parts of the bodies narrow or stretch.

Notice that the head of the man walking in the distance has become so narrow that it has almost disappeared.

Edvard Munch. Scream (fragment). 1893 National Gallery of Norway in Oslo

And a scream tries to break through this expanse of water. But it is barely audible, like a ringing in the ears. So, in a dream we sometimes want to scream, but it turns out something awkward. The effort exceeds the result many times over.

Only the railings seem real. Only they keep us from falling into the whirlpool that sucks us into oblivion.

Yes, there is something to be confused about. And once you see a picture, you will never forget it.

The history of the creation of "Scream"

Munch himself spoke about how the idea to create “The Scream” came about, creating a copy of his masterpiece a year after the original.

This time he placed the work in a simple frame. And under it he nailed a sign on which he wrote under what circumstances the need to create “Scream” arose.

Edvard Munch. Scream. 1894 Pastel. Private collection

It turns out that one day he was walking with friends across a bridge near a fjord. And suddenly the sky turned red. The artist was speechless with fear. His friends moved on. And he felt unbearable despair from what he saw. He wanted to scream...

It was this sudden state of his against the background of the reddened sky that he decided to depict. True, at first he came up with this kind of work.

Edvard Munch. Despair. 1892 Munch Museum, Oslo

In the painting “Despair,” Munch depicted himself on a bridge at the moment of a surge of unpleasant emotions.

And only a few months later he changed the character. Here is one of the sketches for the painting.

Edvard Munch. Scream. 1893 30x22 cm. Pastel. Munch Museum, Oslo

But the image clearly turned out to be intrusive. However, Munch was inclined to repeat the same plots over and over again. And almost 20 years later he created another "Scream".

Edvard Munch. Scream. 1910 Munch Museum in Oslo

In my opinion, this painting is more decorative. She no longer has that nagging horror. A defiantly green face emphasizes that something bad is happening to the main character. And the sky looks more like a rainbow with positive colors.

So what kind of phenomenon did Munch observe? Or was the red sky a figment of his imagination?

I am more inclined to the version that the artist observed a rare phenomenon of mother-of-pearl clouds. They occur at low temperatures near the mountains. Then ice crystals at high altitude begin to refract the light of the sun setting below the horizon.

This is how the clouds turn pink, red, and yellow. In Norway there are conditions for such a phenomenon. It is quite possible that this is what Munch saw.

Is The Scream typical of Munch?

“The Scream” is not the only picture that frightens the viewer. Still, Munch was a person prone to melancholy and even depression. So in his creative collection there are many vampires and murderers.

Left: Vampire. 1893 Munch Museum in Oslo. Right: Killer. 1910 Ibid.

The image of a character with a skeletal head was also not new to Munch. He had already drawn similar faces with simplified features. A year before, they appeared in the painting “Evening on Karl John Street.”

Edvard Munch. Evening on Karl John Street. 1892 Rasmus Meyer Collection, Bergen

In general, Munch deliberately did not draw faces and hands. He believed that any work must be viewed from a distance in order to perceive it in its entirety. And in this case, it doesn’t matter whether the fingernails are drawn.

Edvard Munch. Meeting. 1921 Munch Museum, Oslo

The theme of the bridge was very close to Munch. He created countless works with girls on the bridge. One of them is kept in Moscow,