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The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch. Munch's The Scream is an icon of modern art, the Mona Lisa for our time. As Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Munch defined how we see our own age - wracked with anxiety and uncertainty.
Munch's The Scream is an icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time. As Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Munch defined how we see our own age - wracked with anxiety and uncertainty.
This painting draws on two earlier departures: the anxious humanity moving forward as if driven by ominous elemental forces, as first conceived in Evening on Karl Johan Street; and a certain view of Oslo Fjord, already seen in The Scream.
The truth is, Munch did not title this painting "Vampire." He called it "Love and Pain" and it was only later that it picked up the name and interpretation of a man locked in a vampire's embrace. Munch maintained it was nothing more than a woman kissing a man on the neck.
In an unfolding and often only loosely connected series of paintings, drawings, and prints, Munch developed these great themes of Angst, Love, and Death during the 1890s - a project he calls The frieze of life - and repeatedly returned to them until the end of his life.
One important Norwegian precedent for the depiction of a dissolute woman would undoubtedly have been known to Munch, Hans Heyerdahl's tiny, exquisite painting of The Champagne Girl, which was also strongly attacked when exhibited.
By painting colors and lines and forms seen in quickened mood I was seeking to make this mood vibrate as a phonograph does. This was the origin of the paintings in The Frieze of Life. - Edvard Munch
Munch returned to this deeply traumatic event again and again in his art, over six completed oil paintings and many studies in various media, over a period of more than 40 years.
Here Munch combines several different themes he used in other pictures of the 1890s, producing an enigmatic result. Firstly, the hands placed over the ears, as in The Scream, probably expresses some sort of fear. Secondly, the lonely individual, the woman in white, separates herself from the crowd.
His best-known work, The Scream, has become one of the most iconic images of world art. In the late 20th century, he played a great role in German expressionism and the art form that later followed; namely because of the strong mental anguish that was displayed in many of the pieces that he created.