The Scream

Another work by Edvard Munch, and the one I mentioned earlier, is “The Scream”, which is an excellent representation of the human condition of anxiety and trauma. It is also an icon when it comes to modern art. Painted in 1893, Munch describes it as a memory of a panic attack he had while on a walk with two of his friends, and how he heard an “infinite scream”. The fact that the two men are unaffected and have left him behind tells us that the cause was not physical, but rather an inner dread or anxiousness. The work is painted in a set of undulating lines and waves, squeezing the expression of the figure into that of fear.