week 2 photography

The  Scream

Artist:   Edvard Munch

Year: 1893

Type; Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard

Dimensions; 91 cm × 73.5 cm (36 in × 28.9 in)

The Scream is the popular name given to each of four versions of a composition, created as both paintings and pastels, by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1910. Der Schrei der Natur is the title Munch gave to these works, all of which show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with a tumultuous orange sky. Arthur Lubow has described The Scream as "an icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.

Edvard Munch created the four versions in various media. The National Gallery, Oslo, holds one of two painted versions (1893, shown at right). The Munch Museum holds the other painted version (1910, see gallery) and a pastel version from 1893. These three versions have not traveled for years.

The fourth version (pastel, 1895) was sold for $119,922,600 at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art auction on 2 May 2012 to financier Leon Black, the highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction. The painting was on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York from October 2012 to April 2013.

Also in 1895, Munch created a lithograph stone of the image. Of the lithograph prints produced by Munch, several examples survive. Only approximately four dozen prints were made before the printer resurfaced the original stone in Munch's absence.

The Scream has been the target of several high profile art thefts. In 1994, the version in the National Gallery was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, both The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum, and recovered two years later.

                                

Munch translated The Scream into a lithograph in 1895.The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) did several versions of "The Scream," an alter image for himself (more on this later), in oil, pastel, and lithograph between 1893 and 1910. This my favorite version because the stark contrast of the black-and-white lines mirrors the disconnect between the man's mood and the peaceful surroundings.

This version, executed in 1895 in pastel on cardboard, was sold for more than US$120 million in 2012, thereby making it the most expensive painting sold at auction.

This version, executed in 1910 in tempera on cardboard, was stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004, and recovered in 2007.

A haunting rendition of a hairless figure on a bridge under a yellow-orange sky, The Scream has captured the popular imagination since the time of its making. The image was originally conceived by Munch as part of his epic Frieze of Life series, which explored the progression of modern life by focusing on the themes of love, angst, and death. Especially concerned with the expressive representation of emotions and personal relationships, Munch was associated with the international development of Symbolism during the 1890s and recognized as a precursor of 20th-century Expressionism.