The Scream
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About The Scream
Sometimes a feeling is too big to fit inside one face. In The Scream, it spills into the whole landscape.
The sky twists in red and orange. Dark blue water bends below it. The central figure curves like the air and covers the sides of its head, while two people farther back keep walking. Only the bridge stays straight, cutting firmly through all those waves.
Edvard Munch connected this image to a walk near the Kristiania Fjord, now called the Oslo Fjord. He wrote about sensing a great scream through nature. Rather than painting realistic color and detail, he let lines and shapes carry the feeling.
The figure could be crying out, hearing something, or simply overwhelmed; the picture does not force one answer. We do not have to diagnose the person or enter the fear ourselves.
The bridge gives us somewhere steady to stand while the painted world moves around us.
Artwork details
- Artist
- Edvard Munch
- Date
- 1893
- Medium
- Tempera and grease crayon on cardboard
- Dimensions
- 91 × 73.5 cm
- Collection
- National Museum, Norway
- Accession number
- NG.M.00939
