So, is The Scream all it's cut out to be? Yes, it is! Despite its ubiquitous reproductions on everything from greeting cards to boxer shorts, it retains all of its power to communicate the complex interaction between society, the self and the often mysterious elements of the way we view our own existence. One looks at it and is immediately struck on so many levels of emotion, that is is actually physically difficult to look at it for too long. None the less, the image grafts itself in the mind's eye and refuses to let go. I've thought about The Scream almost daily since my visit to MoMA. Partially, I think my reaction is a result of seeing the actual painting, in its proper context, instead of on a mug or a tee-shirt. The frame with its etched words further adds to the feeling of real communication between the artist and the viewer; one that transcends time and place. It was as if the artist gave me his eyes to view myself. Needless to say, a very powerful experience and one that I don't expect I can precisely give a voice to. One of the most visceral experiences I've had to a painting since I first saw Van Gogh's Starry Night, another highly reproduced image.
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Pastel on board 1895 |
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| This is the inscription at the bottom of the frame of The Scream pastel version, shown above. |
The fact that The Scream is one of the world's most recognized and reproduced artworks implies that the painting resonates with a universal feeling of isolation, loneliness and despair. Munch lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was only five years old. While still young, Munch also suffered the loss of his father and two sisters. The work of this period expresses the deep sense of grief and bleakness he carried well into adulthood.
Munch's work gave visual expression to feelings of existential angst and the darker aspects of human sexuality. His depictions of dark emotions and the psyche of modern man is often credited with being a precursor in the development of modern psychology.
Munch is regarded as one of the most influential artists of German and Central European expressionism. He propelled into the limelight in Germany when his works, where were a part of an exhibition at the Verein Berliner Künstler, were found objectionable and the exhibition was closed down.
"My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born."
~Edvard Munch
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“I was born dying. Sickness, insanity and death were the dark angels standing guard at my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.”
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| Two People. The Lonely Ones 1914-17 Woodcut "No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. " |
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| Jealousy 1891 Lithograph |
"Nature is not all that is visible to the eye. It also includes the inner pictures of the soul."
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| The Storm 1893 "My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings” |
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| Melancholy 1991 Oil on canvas |
"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."
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| Vampire II Lithograph "Your face encompasses the beauty of the whole earth. Your lips, as red as ripening fruit, gently part as if in pain. It is the smile of a corpse. Now the hand of death touches life. The chain is forged that links the thousand families that are dead to the thousand generations to come.” |
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| Self-Portrait |
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
Stay tuned for a more comprehensive follow-up post on the life and work of Edvard Munch.
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