Munk je poklonio skoro ceo svoj opus gradu Oslu, uključujući preko 1.000 slika i 15.000 grafika Munch donated nearly his entire body of work to the city of Oslo, including over 1,000 paintings and 15,000 prints
play at the National Gallery in Oslo. The MUNCH Museum preserves an- other version of the painting from 1910, as well as an 1893 reproduc- tion in pastel, while one version is in private ownership. Despair, the first version of The Scream, was initially exhibited in 1892 under the title Sick Atmosphere at Sunset. Its then very radical representations show a flaming sky, a bridge with three fig- ures and a greenish-blue lake. Munch attended the Royal School of Drawing in Kristiania (Oslo). After sev- eral residence stints in Paris, he decid- ed to break with the Impressionist style in 1885. Following his father’s death in 1889, he fell into a deep depression and went on to develop a metaphorical painting formula for representing inner experiences in empathetic symbolism, becoming a pioneer of the Expression- ist movement. The great success he achieved early in the 20 th century was accompanied by frequent visits to Paris and Berlin, but also by increasingly serious problems with alcohol and his mental health. Fol- lowing a nervous breakdown and sever- al months spent away from public life in the summer of 1908, Munch settled permanently in Norway. He bought an estate near Oslo in 1916 and there led a secluded but very productive life until his death in 1944. The museum’s top floor houses a café overlooking the fjord, and from there Oslo appears as though it’s been care- fully painted. And you can even cre- ate your own picture, right there on the ground floor, in the interactive Draw your Scream zone. There visi- tors are provided with paper, pastels and a mirror, and tasked with draw- ing their own expressions of fear, joy or sadness. The drawings are then dig- itally projected onto the wall, creating a collective “scream” of visitors from around the world.
Scream on the seafront E dvard Munch (1863–1944) was a man who knew how to paint emotions – and not just any emotions, rather those that we generally try to quell. Fear, death, loneliness, madness – Munch transferred it all to canvases that marked the period and opened the door to expressionism. The Scream, Ma- donna, The Sick Child – these are paint- ings that have become synonymous with inner turmoil. Standing on the seafront, the MUNCH Museum is a tall, glass building that seemingly bows to the fjord, as if listening intently to the wind. Opened in 2021, it is dedicated to this artist who painted the entire spec- trum of human vulnerability. The museum presents three versions of The Scream, which are displayed un- der special lighting and alternated every half an hour. All three produce the same effect of inspiring a kind of inner si- lence that drowns out all other sounds until the scream is all that remains. “I was walking along a path with two friends and the sun was setting. I felt a breath of melancholy and the sky sud- denly turned blood-red.” – this is how
Munch described the situation that he translated into the famous paint- ing The Scream. – “I stopped and leant against the railing, deadly tired – look- ing out across flaming clouds that hung like blood and sword over the deep blue fjord and town. My friends walked on and I stood there trembling with anx- iety and I felt a great, infinite scream through nature.” This is, interestingly, one of four ver- sions of The Scream that he painted during his lifetime. The earliest ver- sion dates back to 1893 and is on dis-
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