The secret message hidden in Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more iconic painting in modern Western art than Edvard Munch‘s The Scream. The painful, haunted expression of the subject is one almost everyone is familiar with, with the sheer terror conveyed making a mark on all whose gaze falls upon it. Since its completion in 1893, the work has been deemed one of the most impactful visual portrayals of ill mental health and a defining moment in the embryonic stages of the Expressionist movement.
The painting is so famous that it has permeated popular culture. Whether it be Arthur Janov using a rendition of the painting on the cover of 1970’s The Primal Scream, Macaulay Culkin imitating the pose in the promotional material for Home Alone, or even the Ghostface mask we see ubiquitous on Halloween, popularised by Wes Craven’s fittingly titled Scream films, The Scream is firmly lodged in the collective consciousness and embodies many forms.
While many aspects of The Scream have made it so fascinating, one of the most compelling is the mystery surrounding its source of inspiration, as Munch never provided a definitive answer. From his sister’s internment at a local asylum to the blood-red sunsets of his native Norway, an array of potential explanations exist within the art world.
One of the more substantial accounts of the reasons for The Scream comes from Munch himself, although it still leaves us wondering. Under a diary entry for Nice, 22 January, 1892, he explained: “One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord – the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked. This became The Scream.”
Whilst the questions surrounding the origins of The Scream will likely last for infinity, there are other thrilling elements held within. One is the secret message Edvard Munch wrote in the painting. Tests undertaken by the National Museum of Noway, which used technology to analyse the handwriting, confirmed that the artist wrote in pencil in the top-left corner: “Can only have been painted by a madman”.
“The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own,” Mai Britt Guleng, the museum’s curator, told ABC 11. “The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction.” Munch is believed to have added the words after the painting was heavily criticised during its first public unveiling.
“At a discussion night at the Students Association, where Munch is believed to have been present, the young medical student Johan Scharffenberg questioned Munch’s mental health, claiming that his paintings proved he was not of sound mind,” the museum said.
Adding: “It is likely that Munch added the inscription in 1895, or shortly after in response to the judgment on his work”.
Interestingly, and adding credence to the assertions of the young medical student, Munch was hospitalised in the clinic of Daniel Jacobson in 1908 due to feelings of persecution and hallucinations.
Watch a further analysis of The Scream below.
