The Scream

The Scream (1893)

Through the Lens of Existentialism

“The Scream” is an iconic art by Edvard Munch. It is widely accepted that this artwork is actually an autobiography of Munch. Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter. His works revolved around psychological themes. As we as that, his artworks can fall under various other movements - expressionism, modernism, symbolism, and impressionism.

 

"The Scream" is widely regarded as an expressionist painting. Expressionism was part of modernism. Expressionism in art is distinguished by its expression of subjective emotions rather than objects as it can be seen from the paining above. For the purpose of this analysis, however, we will look at Edvard Munch's "the Scream" from an existential point of view.

Existentialism is a wave in European philosophy which emphasized on “lived human existence.” It became popular in mid-20^th century. Existentialism suggests that we as human beings have no given essence. Rather, we must create our own meanings in this “meaningless world of existence.” Because we can make choices, we can either face the angst or anguish of this responsibility, or escape it by abiding to convention (Baldick, 2015).

Description of the painting:

We see a skull-like figure with his hands on his ears. He is screaming. We can see two figures at the back who are walking away from the skull-like figure. At the background we see nature – sea, land, sky. By the choice of color for the sky, we can see that it is during the sunset. Now, the reason why the figure is screaming is because he is going through an existential crisis. Munch himself described it:

"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."

(Excerpt taken from http://legomenon.com/meaning-of-the-scream-1893-painting-by-edvard-munch.html)

 

Thus, we can see that the painting is actually an expression of Munch's inner emotions. He had a moment of panic attack. Through the "scream", Munch expressed the frustration and anguish he went through. As we have pointed out earlier, experiencing anguish of the responsibility of having to make choices in life is a part of existential crisis.

 

References:

Baldick, C. (2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shabi, K. (2013, June 12). Meaning of The Scream (1893) Painting by Edvard Munch: Art Analysis. Retrieved from Legomenon: http://legomenon.com/meaning-of-the-scream-1893-painting-by-edvard-munch.html