By Kavya M.
The Scream is the name given to an art piece created by Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The original German title Munch gave to this artwork was Der Schrei der Natur meaning The Scream of Nature, and the Norwegian title is Skrik meaning Shriek. The face appearing in the painting is one of the most iconic elements of art, as it symbolizes the anxiety of humans.
According to Munch himself, The Scream represents his soul. Rather than adhering to the commonly used art style of the time, that is, painting pictures meticulously to represent the objects and emotions realistically in them, he chose to use an unrealistic, abstract style to portray his emotions, rather than focus on realism and perfectionism in his art. Munch explained that the painting portrayed a moment of existential crisis.
He talks about getting a panic attack while walking down the road. How he became fatigued, claustrophobic, and had difficulty in breathing.
He used this canvas to pour out his emotions. It can be observed that the bold use of tones of red in the sky above, the odd, inhuman screaming face, and the movement of strokes make into it a very intriguing as well as tumultuous painting.
In my interpretation, the painting seems like a depiction of all the emotions that were kept bottled up, releasing themselves in one scream. Against all the pressure and stress that lay on Munch’s shoulders, it all burst out in the form of a panic attack, where his soul screamed for help.
Munch talks about his childhood trauma, from losing his mother and one of the two sisters to tuberculosis and a verbally abusive father, he simply needed
to release all those emotions and used “Art” as a medium of relieving his dejected emotions.
To elucidate further, The Scream is a very relatable painting. Almost all of us can place ourselves in his shoes, recognizing the bottled-up emotions, stress, and pressure.
I understand The Scream to be a deeper insight into the make of his mind and not something he produced due to a single anxiety attack, like a series of despondent emotions he felt throughout the years.
It is in fact distressing in the way it depicts the truth, an endless, timeless truth. We are all humans, in suffering.
The ghostly face seen in the painting resembles all our souls, it represents our anxiety, our suffering.
It depicts a plethora of emotions, yet all of them are relevant especially with the developing world, where time doesn’t seem to stop for anyone, it keeps on moving on and on.
Kavya Maheshwari is an advocate for neurodiversity with Project Inclusion'20.
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