LE CRI d’EDVARD MUNCH

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is a Norwegian painter and engraver recognized as one of the most renowned artists of the Scandinavian countries and a precursor of expressionist painting.

The Scream is renowned worldwide and has been reproduced and reinterpreted countless times. It is one version from a series of five works created between 1893 and 1917.

The presented version is painted in tempera on cardboard and the complete series also includes three paintings, a pastel, and a lithograph.

Munch is recognized alongside Van Gogh and Gauguin as a precursor of modern art.

From an early age, Munch is confronted with illness and death. His mother and one of his sisters die from illness while he is still a child.

• Illness persists throughout Munch's life • He has a weak constitution • He experiences constant fear of death • He suffers from numerous bouts of depression

His expressionism is marked by the desire to symbolize human emotions, particularly anguish and pain.

The Scream is part of the Frieze of Life, a series of paintings that form an allegory of life's progression.

Edvard Munch writes in his 1892 journal that he was walking on a path with two friends as the sun was setting and the sky turned blood red.

Munch stops, exhausted and leaning against a railing. He describes seeing blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord of the city while his friends continue on.

He remains trembling with anxiety and senses an infinite scream passing through the universe and tearing through nature.

The infinite scream is phantasmagorical and linked to a feeling of anguish in the face of an imposing and disturbing nature, representing the artist's own existential anxiety.

Fifteen years ago, American astrophysicists proposed a scientific explanation of The Scream connected to a major volcanic eruption.

On August 27, 1883, the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia experienced one of the largest eruptions ever recorded, causing major tsunamis.

• The eruption noise reached at least 172 decibels and was heard nearly 4,800 km away • Volcanic ash poured into the atmosphere and spread worldwide • It produced glowing sunsets visible especially in northern Europe

The apocalyptic sky likely triggered strong emotions in Munch, which he remembers ten years later when painting the work. These fiery red hues suit the allegory of pain used here.

Art historian Robert Rosenblum proposed in 1978 an interesting hypothesis about Munch's inspirations for creating the distinctive character of The Scream.

In 1889, Edvard Munch is in Paris the same year as the Paris Universal Exposition.

Munch may have seen mummies from the Peruvian Chachapoya people on display, showing striking similarities to the character in The Scream.

• The position and skin color of the mummies resemble the character in The Scream • The appearance of these same mummies is also found in a figure in Paul Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?