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When Munch Wasn’t Screaming
Bittersweet togetherness and the contrast between death and life in Edvard Munch’s early work.
There’s a certain irony to Edvard Munch’s fame — that despite being one of the most prolific artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, he is known globally for a single image. Even those of us who don’t know who Munch was have probably seen The Scream replicated or at least parodied somewhere. From screaming cats to Jokers, The Scream is resonant for its universality.
As one New Yorker article cleverly put it, we all scream. Or more aptly, we all long for the release, though we seldom allow ourselves the true freedom of an actual howl.
But across his eighty years, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch did a lot more than just scream. In fact, like most of us, the enigmatic painter stifled most of his howling. He also channeled it into some of the most expressive and unsettling paintings in the history of art. And I reckon they’re worth a gander. You know, when we’re not screaming.
The longing to scream — why are we so drawn to Munch’s tableau?
Arguably, the reason for the great fame of The Scream (which is not one image, but four — two pastels and two paintings) is that we recognize ourselves in the…
