Everything you thought about 'The Scream' is wrong
"The Scream" by Edvard Munch is one of the most famous images in the history of art, and even
has its own emoji. If you thought the
artwork showed a figure screaming, however, it turns out you may have
misinterpreted Munch's work. With "The
Scream" Munch is recalling a personal memory of a spectacular sunset in
Oslo which gave the sky and clouds a dramatic red hue, according to Giulia
Bartrum, curator of a forthcoming exhibition devoted to the artist at the
British Museum in London.
"The blood-red
sky had the effect of making him feel hugely anxious," Bartrum told CNN
via telephone. "The artwork is very much a reflection of Munch's personal
mood." And the artist wrote
an inscription in German on the black and white lithograph version which reads:
"I felt the great scream throughout nature." Hands over its ears, the
ghostly figure is in fact blocking out nature's scream. The waviness of the
figure is a visual representation of what he is feeling, said Bartrum, and the
black and white bands behind are almost vibrating like a tuning fork.
"It has an
obvious emotive impact," said Bartrum, who added that it's very easy to
misinterpret the artwork as a figure screaming. "You can
associate it with your own mood," said Bartrum. "Everyone has had
those moments of despair." Over the years the
image has also been used in political campaigns, such as the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament, but Munch was expressing a personal emotion and did not
intend it to be used as a public message.
He was a private man,
according to Bartrum, and even during his lifetime he feared that he had lost
control of his work even though the reproduction of images was much slower than
it is now. And it's easy to appropriate such an emotive image for a cause. "You could take
it in a personal way, you could take it in a political way," said Bartrum.
"The image is there and it will be used.".. read more:
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/munch-scream-british-museum-gbr-scli-intl/index.html
