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WonderArt fact

Edvard Munch's The Scream is not one painting: the Norwegian artist made two painted versions, in 1893 and 1910, two in pastel and a lithograph print, all showing the same figure under a blood-red sky.

National Museum and Munch Museum, Oslo

ArtMind

The story behind the card

Munch described the moment behind it in a diary entry headed Nice, 22 January 1892: walking at sunset near Oslo, he felt a great scream pass through nature. So the scream belongs to the landscape; the figure is hearing it and covering its ears, not making it. The 1893 painting hangs in Norway's National Museum, and the Munch Museum in Oslo holds the 1910 painting and a pastel. A faint pencil note on the 1893 picture says it could only have been painted by a madman; in 2021 the National Museum confirmed the handwriting is Munch's own, probably added after critics attacked the work. The 1895 pastel, the one version in private hands, sold in 2012 for about 120 million dollars, then an auction record.

Türkçe oku
Edvard Munch'ın Çığlık'ı tek bir tablo değildir: Norveçli ressam, kan kırmızısı bir gökyüzünün altındaki aynı figürü 1893'te ve 1910'da iki kez boyayla, iki kez de pastelle yaptı; bir de taş baskısını hazırladı.
Ulusal Müze ve Munch Müzesi, Oslo

Munch, tablonun doğduğu anı “Nice, 22 Ocak 1892” başlıklı bir günlük notunda anlatır: Oslo yakınlarında gün batımında yürürken doğanın içinden büyük bir çığlığın geçtiğini hissetmiştir. Yani çığlık manzaraya aittir; figür bağırmıyor, o çığlığı duyup kulaklarını kapatıyor. 1893 tarihli resim Norveç Ulusal Müzesi'nde, 1910 tarihli resim ile bir pastel ise Oslo'daki Munch Müzesi'ndedir. 1893 tarihli resmin üzerinde, ancak bir delinin yapabileceğini söyleyen soluk bir kurşun kalem notu vardır. Ulusal Müze 2021'de yazının Munch'ın kendi el yazısı olduğunu doğruladı; not büyük olasılıkla eleştirmenler esere saldırdıktan sonra eklenmişti. Özel koleksiyondaki tek sürüm olan 1895 tarihli pastel, 2012'de yaklaşık 120 milyon dolara satıldı; bu, o güne kadarki müzayede rekoruydu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: The Scream
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