Scream, The

Edvard Munch: The Scream

The Scream, painting by Edvard Munch that became his most famous work. He completed two versions in 1893, another in 1895, and yet another likely in 1910.

The Scream is one of the most familiar images in modern art. It stemmed from a panic attack that Munch suffered in 1892. He described how it occurred, as he was strolling along a path outside Kristiania (now Oslo): “The sun was setting and the clouds turned as red as blood. I sensed a scream passing through nature. I felt as though I could actually hear the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds like real blood. The colors shrieked.” Munch represented the scream through a series of undulating lines that pressed in on the figure like shock waves, reducing its face to a primal image of fear. He accentuated this effect by showing that his two companions were unscathed, thus implying that the trauma came from his own mind, rather than the world outside. On a copy of the picture, Munch wrote: “Could only have been painted by a madman.”

The Scream has become a popular representation of the human condition. The painting’s central figure has appeared throughout Western popular culture in everything from television to emoji, and it has been parodied in motion pictures, including, arguably, Macaulay Culkin’s iconic grimace in John Hughes’s Home Alone.