The Scream by Munch

Expressionism

The famous painting is the symbol of Expressionism. The term expressionism comes from the Latin "exprimere", that means "to push out". This movement is the story of how the artist feels and perceives the world around him. He finds the most suitable way to project his own interiority onto the canvas in the power of color and in the incisiveness of the brush strokes. This artistic trend developed mainly in France and Germany with different names: "Fauves", "Die Brucke" and "Blaue Reiter".

The painting

Edvard Munch expresses his interiority in his most famous work "The Cry", better known as "The Scream by Munch". The composition includes a dramatic figure that dominates the foreground with his cry. The man stares at spectators with his opened mouth to symbolize a cry and his hands are placed on his ears as if he wanted to protect himself from a sound which is too loud. Behind this figure there is the landscape of Oslo, represented by flowing and wavy lines that are mixed in with sunset. The color is used in a violent way but at the same time it generates continuity between nature and the individual. The famous face becomes the symbol of the tragic inner nature of each individual. It is currently located in the National Gallery of Oslo.