Critical Analysis of Edvard Munch's The Scream

Critical Analysis of Edvard Munch's The Scream

"The Scream", sometimes known as "The Cry" was painted by Edvard Munch

in 1893. Some say Munch played a role in the development of German

Expressionism, though the Norwegian painter turned down two offers to

join the group, and preferred not to be classified, or 'put' into a

category. This painting was part of Munch's "The Frieze of Life", a

series of paintings each portraying a phase of life - as defined by

Munch: Birth of Love, Blossoming and Dissolution of Love, Anguish of

Life, and Death. The eleven paintings - "The Kiss", "Madonna",

"Ashes", "Dance of Life", "Melancholy", "Red Virginia Creeper", "The

Scream", "Death in the Sick-Room", "Puberty", "Moonlight", and "The

Sick Child" - are as moving today as they were a hundred years ago

when the motifs were first conceived.

Munch finished "The Scream" in 1893. It was a work of great personal

meaning to him. The painting was like the culmination of all the

tragic and harrowing events in his life. When Munch was aged only five

years old, his Mother died from Tuberculosis. Nine years later, his

favourite sister Sophie dies from tuberculosis also, at the age of 15.

Frequent illnesses prevent him from attending Technical college in

Christiania (Oslo). In 1889, he is hit with perhaps the biggest blow

so far: his beloved father dies. Munch wrote:

"And I live with the dead ones; my mother, my sister, my grandfather,

my father- he, especially. Every memory, every little thing, they all

come back to me in flocks. I can see him again as I saw him for the

last time four months ago, when he told me goodbye on the bench; we

were a little bit shy, we didn't want to betray the pain that this

separation was causing to us. How much we loved each other in spite of

everything, how much he worried at night for me, for my life - because

I couldn't share his faith"

Therefore, it is not surprising that the mood of the painting is so

haunting. Munch painted it surrounded by morbidity. The point in the

painting where we see the figures, was a road on top of a hill looking

over Christiania and the harbour. On one side of the hill was a

psychiatric hospital where one of his sisters had been sent, and on

the other side, an abattoir. Munch described the feeling he

experienced in a diary entry in his literary diary in Nice, on the 22nd

January 18...

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...e influenced two German expressionist groups, Die Brüke

and Die Blaue Reiter. He had two offers from Die Blaue Reiter to join

them, but he turned both down. Painting was for Munch a personal

experience, and he did not like to share it, or put his works into any

grouping.

The painting itself looks quite 'slapdash', as though it was rushed.

The thick streaks of oil paint give the effect of a movement blur,

like the world was swirling around the figure. It is hard to

distinguish between the water and the land, difficult to recognize

where the hills in the background stop and the sunset begins.

"The Scream" is a painting full of emotion, full of character not

understood at the time of its birth. It reflects Munch's life at that

time, all the Death and anxiety that makes the painting so mysterious

and haunting, whilst also lively. When I look at it, I feel I can hear

the scream echoing from it. The screaming figure draws the attention

of the onlooker, but other aspects of the painting are just as

interesting.

Whilst we cannot know what was going through Munch's mind when he

painted"The Scream", we can guess that the painting evokes all the

pain he was feeling.