Inspired by a hallucination, the haunting oil painting The Scream by Norwegian-born painter Edvard Munch is an icon of modern art. It is said to symbolize modern spiritual anguish.

The Scream is Munch’s interpretation of a scream piercing through nature, experienced by the artist while on a walk after his two companions, as seen in the background of the painting, have left him. While seemingly autobiographical, the subject of the painting is distorted, bearing no physical resemblance to the artist, but rather his anguished state of being.

Munch used dramatic lines to convey emotion in his work. The repeated, swirling curves of the corpse-like figure’s face, hands, and body are echoed in the landscape, creating a sense of anxiety that moves beyond the figure into the entire world.

About Edvard Munch

Norwegian-born Expressionist painter Edvard Munch was a prolific yet troubled artist preoccupied with human mortality, known for his use of intense colors, semi-abstraction, and mysterious, often open-ended themes. His intensely evocative treatment of psychological anguish greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century.