The Scream

The Scream by Edvard Munch is amongst the most famous paintings in art history and stand out as the key highlight of this Norwegian artist's extraordinary career. This section details The Scream in greater detail and tries to explain just how and why it did indeed become so well known.

The Scream was created twice by Edvard Munch in painted versions as well as in several other different mediums. The two oil paintings are the best known and now reside in National Gallery of Norway and the Munch Museum. There were also two pastels produced. Incidentally, Skrik is Norwegian for Scream, and the painting was part of The Frieze of Life series of works which covered the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety. The first Scream came about in 1893 with the second oil on canvas coming in 1910. The first featured oil, tempura and pastel together on cardboard which may now be refered to as mixed media, but most in the art world only know it as an oil painting.

Much debate continues on the subject in the foreground of The Scream painting, and no clear decision has ever been made. The painting's main figure has been suggested as a possible Peruvian ethnic character that Munch had witnessed previously, whilst other inspirations have also been suggested. This mystery adds to the painting's fame and prestige and perhaps has helped it to stand out from the rest of his career. Munch once was quoted describing one experience which proved part of the inspiration for The Scream painting where he was out with friends walking in the countryside and became unsettled at the sky turned an incredible red. A quick glance at the original shows a clear comparison with this tale in which he was quoted accurately.

The Scream by Edvard Munch is an inspirational oil painting which remains very popular today. Edvard Munch's 1893 The Scream is covered in full within this website which also offers opportunities to buy reproductions of the original painting for your own home as framed or unframed art prints, giclee prints, posters and stretched canvases. Edvard Munch was a truly expressionist artist who used his style to get across more than just the object which he was painting. This expressive style has become a key art movement within European art and features some of it's most important painters over the past two centuries, which includes Edvard Munch and many of his best contributions from an extensive career.

Those interested in Munch's career in general can visit the gallery that includes over one hundred of his other best paintings. Edvard Munch's death in 1944 led to all of his remaining oil paintings and other artworks being moved to Oslo. It was at this point that the Munch Museum at Tøyen was constructed entirely for the purpose of storing and displaying these paintings which were seen as crucial to Norwegian art. The books available on Edvard Munch now tend to concentrate massively on this specific painting because of the likelihood that those looking to read more about this artist may only be aware of The Scream at that point.

Further study into Munch quickly reveals a great selection of other paintings that also deserve recognition and are perhaps just as good in some people's eyes, but simply haven't attracted the same level of exposure. The success of Edvard Munch's Scream paintings have brought them great attention within the media thanks in part to the memorable pose which dominates the painting. One downside of this attention and exposure have been the theft of both of the two painted versions from their homes in Norwegian museums, though both were recovered and restored to their original forms. We hope you appreciate the merits of The Scream painting and take advantage of all the information available on it within this website. Why not get your own copy to add to your home? The links above offer a great selection of different paintings and reproduction options from the career of Edvard Munch though The Scream does tend to dominate Munch's career due to it's media coverage.