The painting named “The Scream” was painted in 1893. This is a famous masterpiece of Edvard Munch, a Norwegian Symbolist painter. He is also an important forerunner of expressionist art. Through “The Scream”, Munch explored the themes of fear, melancholia and anxiety.
Regarding this painting, Munch wrote of how the painting came to be. One day, he walked down the road with his two friends when the sun set. In this time, the sky turned as red as blood suddenly. He stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Then he heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.
In this painting, there are a man with a very anxious and frightening face, two men was walking behind him, timber decking and fence, a lake, some boats inside the lake, some mountains, forest and the awful red sky. Among them, the awful red sky and the man with an anxious face was screaming are the main part for me. The perplexed painted forest is also made me unpleasant. The fearful sky gives me the worst perspective view of this painting.
The key person inside the painting is screaming. What is the matter he worried or scared about it? Is it someone or something or might be an unpleasant nature? He looked helpless and the two persons who seem to be his friends are also a bit far from him. It seems like that he was helpless and so scared. Although there are some people around him, he scared dreadfully. Even though the surrounding was still in a broad day light, he screamed. I feel that he was afraid of someone or something which cannot be preventable. It might be the death.
In his painting, he use a few colors to capture the theme which he wants to convey to viewers. I saw only two majority drawing lines style: the straight lines and the curve lines. For the timber decking and fence which is artificial works, he used a lot of straight lines to paint. For the natural parts as the lake, the sky and the forest, he used only the curve lines which mean chaotic condition. In his painting, I can feel only three things as the straight lines, the curve line and the scream. From the combination of these three things, I got only one key point. This is the death which is chaos for all people a normal routine live. He wants to say that the death is an unthinkable, chaotic condition for every one. Although your friends or your families are around you, you feel you are helpless. This is a message that I got from this painting.
