The scream

 

A passage in Munch’s diary dated January 22, 1892, and written in Nice, contains the probable inspiration for this scene as the artist remembered it:

 “I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun went down—I felt a gust of melancholy—suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death—as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city—My friends went on—I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I felt a vast infinite scream tear through nature.” 

The figure on the bridge, who may be symbolic of Munch himself, feels the cry of nature, a sound that is sensed internally rather than heard with the ears. How very aptly he can express this sensation in visual terms-with a few brush strokes. I feel that this image is so appropriate for our modern world and culture; wars, global warming and widespread misery on the planet all co-existing in a small image. For me it even evokes ancient remembrance of connection to other dimensions, universes,-perhaps even interstellar cultures.

The Scream is a work of remembered sensation rather than perceived reality-we can all attest too these sensations at some point in our lives-and often it is interpreted all on an individual reality of the observer. We live more in the world of the senses than reality, especially when we are in more of communication with our higher self.  

 Second only to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch’s The Scream may be the most iconic human figure in the history of Western art. Its androgynous, skull-shaped head, elongated hands, wide eyes, flaring nostrils and ovoid mouth have been ingrained in our collective cultural consciousness; the swirling blue landscape and especially the fiery orange and yellow sky have engendered numerous theories regarding the scene that is depicted.

Perhaps of things to come? Perhaps of things past ? Perhaps just the expression of a tormented soul? Perhaps of fear of the unknown? Perhaps nothing more, nothing less than an artist in the clutches and throes of deep depression.