Artist: Edvard Munch
Title: The Scream
Date: 1893
Medium: Oil, Tempera and pastel on Cardboard
Dimensions: 91 cm × 73.5 cm
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose
intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the
main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and
greatly influenced German Expressionism in
the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893. The Scream is Munch's most famous work and one of the most
recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as
representing "the universal anxiety of modern man."( Eggum, Arne; Munch,
Edvard (1984). Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and
Studies.
New York: C.N. Potter) Art critic Laura
Cummings remarks on this work of art, she states, " Painted with broad bands of garish color and
highly simplified forms, and employing a high viewpoint, the agonized figure is
reduced to a garbed skull in the throes of an emotional crisis." The
Scream is an excellent example of fear, by viewing the objects expressions one
catches a sense of anxiety and panic. Munch wrote of how the painting came to
be: "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set;
suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the
fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the
bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind,
shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of
nature."(
Prideaux, Sue (2005). Edvard Munch: Behind the
Scream. New Haven: Yale University Press)
No comments:
Post a Comment