Welcome to a “Curious Callback” of A Little Curious, a series of special episodes that will provide you will short and sweet bonus content about the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in art history. A Little Curious will publish in our season's "off" weeks. Enjoy!

This week’s topic: the disastrous inspiration behind Munch's The Scream?

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Production and Editing by Kaboonki.

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The New York Times: ART; 'The Scream,' East of Krakatoa

Episode Transcript

Possibly second to the Mona Lisa as one of the world’s most iconic works of art, Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting The Scream has been parodied and imitated everywhere from The Simpsons to Home Alone to… well, the Scream series of horror films. You are probably picturing it in your mind right now: a scene of a terrible skeleton-like figure, a man (or at least we think it is a man), mouth drawn down in an oval of fright and despair, his hands framing his face. The entire image is an awful one, made even worse by the shocking swirl of expressionistic brushstrokes creating a violent orange sky and an empty landscape beyond. So, not a happy painting, but one that has long been the single work of art to define Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter most active in the late 19th century and one who has been an inspiration for artists for over a century. 

One of the things I love most is when I can hear an artist discuss his or her work of art personally, which is why it’s always a pleasure for me in my day job as a curator of contemporary art. I want to learn and understand an artist’s thoughts, inspiration, methods. About The Scream, Munch wove a really famous tale about his personal take on this painting, inspired by his own experiences. A year before he completed the painting, Munch recorded an entry in his diary about an unusual occurrence he had experienced years before. He writes, quote, “I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun was setting. I felt a wave of sadness, and the sky suddenly turned blood-red. I stopped, leaned against the fence, tired to death, and looked out over the flaming clouds like blood and swords, the blue-black fjord and city. My friends walked on, but I stood there quaking with angst– and I felt as though a vast, endless Scream passed through nature.” 

This moment so struck Munch that he not only translated it into canvas-- multiple times over, as well as in prints--but he even wrote a poem about the incident, taking phrases nearly verbatim from this diary entry. It’s almost like he needed to exorcise the moment from his being through artistic interpretation, or that he needed to relive the crisis over and over again to understand or come to grips with it. But what does it mean? What happened to Munch that day, on the road, overlooking the fjord?

The general interpretation throughout art history has been that the artist, in that specific moment he described in his diary, had some sort of existential break, or a break down-- at the very least, some kind of psychological event. Munch was always anxious, and possibly depressed, with an overall tone of despair evident in much of his work, so such an interpretation does make some sense. In addition, the vast, endless scream of nature could hit one almost like the theoretical “Sublime” as envisioned by the philosopher Edmund Burke in the late 18th century, wherein the grandiosity of nature is so evident that mankind can only seem small in comparison and thus register the relationship as a kind of horror. All in all, this concept of a personal psychological problem-- is one of the reasons the work is so starkly famous, so resonant to us today. We can relate to the figure’s distress and anxiety in The Scream, even if we aren’t experiencing his exact same mental state.

In 2004, though, a new theory came to light to explain the mystery behind The Scream and what it truly represents. In an issue of Sky and Telescope Magazine-- yep, for real-- three researchers from Texas State University posited that there was a logical and physical reason for the scream of nature. This isn’t the first time that scientists have hoped to solve artistic mysteries using their own divergent backgrounds-- in fact, our very last episode of A Little Curious touched on this when we discussed the ongoing efforts of scientists, as well as art historians, to locate the fabled Battle of Anghiari painting by Leonardo da Vinci. And we also covered medical diagnoses of various figures in art history in one of our episodes from the first season-- that’s episode #18, if you want to listen in. In this case, though the Texas scientists--and one English professor, focused solely on Munch’s blood-red sky: that incredibly stirring sunset, they say? It was caused by the eruption of the fabled volcano of Krakatoa, in Indonesia, which blew its lid on August 27, 1883. By the end of that year, the detritus-- all that muck stirred up into the air from the explosion-- had blown into Europe and beyond. As the New York Times reported, on November  28, 1883, the result was some of the most amazing sunsets of all time, and the article further reflected a scene that sounds staggeringly familiar. It reported, quote, “Soon after 5 o'clock the western horizon suddenly flamed into a brilliant scarlet, which crimsoned sky and clouds. People in the streets were startled at the unwonted sight and gathered in little groups on all the corners to gaze into the west. Many thought that a great fire was in progress.'' A similar note was heralded, in fact, in a Norway paper just two days later, reading, quote, “A strong light was seen yesterday and today around 5 o'clock to the west of the city. People believed it was a fire: but it was actually a red refraction in the hazy atmosphere after sunset.''

So-- was that it? Did Munch and his friends, in their evening promenade, happen upon this atmospheric anomaly? It’s entirely possible, though Munch didn’t confirm the exact date, or even year, of his experience of that vast, eternal scream. It could have happened in 1883 or 1884, when Norway, like much of the rest of the world, was experiencing those incredibly vivid twilights. But to me, even if this is the true experience that inspired Munch, it’s only half of the story. For me, that vivid blood-red background is startling and amazing, sure, but it’s secondary to the figure, the screaming figure in the forefront. Think about it. This phenomenon brought on by the eruption of Krakatoa was witnessed over a period of months and by millions of people all over the world. It’s natural that some of them might have been freaked out by what they saw, or at least a little nervous-- remember that people on both sides of the Atlantic thought that there was a huge fire just off the horizon, for example. But in general, people moved on, and even enjoyed the spectacular and strange beauty of their evenings. Not Munch. It’s his reaction-- that tiredness, that dizzy sensation, that break from his two walking companions, and, finally-- his experience of the Scream of nature, the Scream that would give its name to the painting and inspire its protagonist to scream too-- that’s why this painting stands the test of time and why it grips us, even today. If it was a simple scene reflecting the Krakatoa incident, I don’t think we’d feel so moved, so inspired, so terrified. It’s the feeling, and Munch’s expression of those feelings, that make this work for me. 

For more stories of the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in art history, subscribe now to the ArtCurious Podcast on the podcatcher of your choice, or download and listen in on our website, artcuriouspodcast.com. I hope that this episode today has made you a little curious.