WTAWT: Edvard Munch's "The Scream"

WTAWT (What the Artist Wants to Tell) is meant to be fun, to take a few exuberant leaps of thought about famous works of art around the world, in order to encourage the reader to further leaps of thought – free art , free art appreciation and free art interpretation, for all people.

So Edvard Munch's "The Scream" doesn't really fit into this category at all; after all, the "Scream," along with Picasso's war drama "Guernica ," Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull "For the Love of God," and other well-known horrors, is among the works that can at least make the viewer shudder.

But creep and death is a quota racer, as shown by entire television evenings, on which there is no other way to see than crime novels or reality documentary of a quality that is even more hopeless than death and creep.

And the art exhibitors are of course fully in line with the mainstream, as the exhibition “Lust am Schrecken – Ausdrucksformen des Grauens” in 2015 proved, featuring 70 particularly gruesome paintings, prints and sculptures, which was on display in the Picture Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (some of the collection highlights can still be viewed during the current renovations, in case Munch’s “The Scream” is not enough for you).

At the same time, "The Scream" absolutely deserves a place in this category, because it is, after all, one of the most famous images in the world. A person today cannot escape "The Scream" when communicating with people on a "Big Brother" level ; it intrudes from many sides, as with the people who are thinking about WTAWT here:

Free art view

After careful consideration, Mia decided to study free art. Engineers and IT specialists are said to be the most in demand at the moment and will probably continue to have good prospects in the future, their parents urged this direction, after all, they have always reached good grades in MINT subjects.

Unfortunately, her busy parents had completely escaped that, with a small exceptions to men at their high school, they were taught by men who, after the turn of the millennium-were still of the opinion that girls had no talent for MINT subjects. It is not true, but at least these men managed to do that Mia could not develop the passion for one of these two future -determining subjects that are needed for the choice of career.

Doesn't matter, Mia now has a quiet idea that art can express itself in engineering art and IT art as in oil paints and watercolor, sound or bronze. In addition, she now has a quiet idea that she tends to be too wide as a wide range than too closely specialized. Your path will probably be to work with specialists and to learn from a specialist area so much that she can admire the knowledge of a passionate specialist and can benefit from it.

She also has an inkling that properly used internet can always help her acquire knowledge when a particular subject area was treated in a way that discouraged her interest at school.

After abandoning the idea of ​​"engineering or IT," her parents suggested business administration and law, subjects that were currently impossible, even "immoral," for the politically engaged Mia. Mia chose art because, after thoroughly researching numerous degree programs, she hadn't found many others that offered a free and independent course of study, allowing her to explore her own talents. Hence, Fine Arts, "free" also in the sense of her motto: "If I have to expect to spend a good portion of my professional life in unpaid internships or poorly paid part-time jobs anyway, I might as well study something I truly enjoy." But at least Fine Arts also opens doors to careers in crafts or teaching, and these professions are currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity.

Mia enjoys her studies, but she has just been given a tough assignment in the seminar “Free Art Appreciation” : an analysis of one of the world’s most famous paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, with explicit instructions to use only factual sources; working with evaluative and descriptive secondary literature is prohibited.

Together with fellow students Leon, Finn and Noah, they initially divided the consideration into “pure perception” (Noah) and “pure sensation” (Mia), “perception against the background of the determined facts” (Finn) and “sensation against the background of the determined facts” (Leon).

In the first round, Noah and Mia developed the templates, while Finn and Leon compiled the facts. In the first meeting, facts, feelings, and perceptions were exchanged. Noah and Mia then supplemented their pure perceptions and feelings with the impressions gained from the facts. Finn and Leon, based on their background work, recorded their perceptions and feelings, so that facts, perceptions, and feelings were reflected four times. After another exchange, everything was brought together in a final discussion.

Noah was initially quite confused by his "pure perception" because he found several different "screams." In each one, a figure is screaming, some more distinct than others, but in "Scream 1," the two people in the background are walking towards the screamer; in "Scream 2," they are looking into the water; in "Scream 3," the two people in the background are acting differently; and in "Scream 4," the two people are moving away from the screamer. Then he found another "scream," a lithograph, which looked slightly different again, except that the two people in the background were also moving away from the screamer.

Mia noticed this too, of course, but couldn't discern any major differences in terms of sensation between the various "screams".

Rather, it's the fact that Edvard Munch's "The Scream" isn't just one "scream," but that he painted four of them. Since Mia, true to her assignment, initially wanted to collect pure sensations, she doesn't yet know that Edvard Munch's thoughts revolved around painting screams for a full 17 years... But four "screams" are enough for her; this painter, even without any knowledge of his life circumstances (which Mia, of course, already possesses), wouldn't let anyone suspect that he knows the kinder side of this world.

There are certainly enough for everyone who dare to look at the world, then as today to scream enough - but at some point the normal person becomes happy again and takes care of the more pleasant things in life.

Mia writes a long sequence of emotional keywords revolving around illness, death, a tendency towards consumption, hyper-nervousness, insane pietistic piety, guilt, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, melancholy, jealousy, unrequited love, rheumatic fever, crisis, love triangle, bad reviews, shock, persecution, nervous breakdown, getting worse, alcoholism, industrialization, moral degeneration, violence, painted deliriums, criminals, shame, scorned, outsiders, political radicalism, dangerous, grief, isolation, loneliness, a sense of being lost, depressive mood, melancholy, tension between illusion and reality, problem area, threats, oppression, inner turmoil, mysterious figures, lovesickness, blood, tongues of fire, skull, fear of life, depression, anxiety, mask-like faces, feline and vampire-like characteristics, skeletal arm, loss, longing, fear, huge, cavernous eyes, foreign bodies, unfathomable, unpredictable. Suffering, blood flower, confinement, threat, decay, torment, pain, sin, dark threat, despair, murderess, stiff, frozen, greedy, disappointed, embittered, Passion of Christ, mockery, demonic, distorted face, genderless, distance, persecution anxiety, hell, emotional disorder, blows of fate, gloomy, cry for help, dark inner life, all just from an essay on “symbolism” in Munch’s work and – has no desire to continue.

It also creates a list of all known phobias from the very suitable Achluophobia, fear of darkness, about nomophobia (for cheering, that is the fear, without being contact with mobile phone) to zoophobia, fear of animals; After that, she first has to insert a phase with consistently happy to silly sensations so as not to be unpainted for the rest of her life.

Finn presents the facts, thus initially putting the “screams” in order (which Noah, for unknown reasons, has put in the correct order, which everyone considers a good sign for the success of the art appreciation ):

1. “The Scream” , Edvard Munch, 1893, pastel on wood, 74 × 56 cm, now hangs in the Munch Museum in Oslo. In this scream, the eyes are only suggested, the mouth is slightly tilted to the left, and the two people in the background are walking towards the screamer.

2. “The Scream” , Edvard Munch, 1893, tempera on cardboard, 91 × 73.5 cm, now hangs in the Norwegian National Gallery in Oslo. In this scream, the eyes are round and empty, yet gaze-filled; the mouth is tilted to the left; the two figures in the background look to the right at the water.

3. “The Scream” , Edvard Munch, 1895, pastel on wood, 79 × 59 cm, is now in a private collection. In this scream, the eyes show a clear gaze, the mouth is slightly tilted to the left, the two people in the background are performing separate actions, one is gazing around, the other has collapsed over the railing.

This pastel version was probably commissioned in 1895 by Arthur von Franquet, the avid art collector and Munch-admiring great-nephew of a Brunswick chicory coffee manufacturer. Even back then, it was apparently possible to become filthy rich with a cheap substitute for a coveted foodstuff, much like today with "milk" slices instead of a proper sandwich for a break.

This pastel version was auctioned on May 2, 2012 by Petter Olsen (shipping company Fred. Olsen & Co.) via Sotheby's New York for the interesting sum of $ 119,922,500, the joyless picture thus became the most sixth painting in the world.

However, the buyer Leon Black- Apollo Global Management, investment and investments- seems to be one of the art collectors with a feeling for responsibility for society, and he showed the picture from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City from October 24, 2012 to April 29, 2013.

4. “The Scream” , Edvard Munch, 1910, tempera on cardboard, 83 × 66 cm, now hangs in the Munch Museum in Oslo. In this scream, the eyes are large and empty, the mouth is small and slightly tilted to the left, and the two people in the background are moving away from the screamer.

These are the four known variations of the scream in painting form, only four pictures from Munch's so -called life frieze, a whole series of pictures with the subjects of fear, love and death.

The lithography scream is again from 1895 and quite small (49.4 × 37.3 cm), it hangs in the Gundersen Collection Oslo today. With this cry, the eyes are torn wide open with a clear look, the mouth narrow and straight and wide, and the two people in the background move away from the screaming.

However, there are several lithographs of the scream, one lithography of the pastel version of 1895, e.g. B. in the Stuttgart State Gallery and in the Hamburg Kunsthalle.

The “series” or “frieze” comprises a total of 22 works in four sections:

• Germination of love: star night, red and white, eye in the eye, dance on the beach, the kiss, Madonna
• Blow and offense of love: ash, vampire, dance of life, jealousy, the woman in three stadiums, melancholy
• Lifestyle: fear, evening on the Karl Johans Gate, red wine, Golgatha, the scream
• Death: on the deathbed, death in the hospital room, odor smell, metabolism, the child and death

The titles already indicate: Edvard Munch is one of the ancestors where you can be happy that they are ancestors and not contemporaries. After the collection of these first facts, Finn has enough, the fellow students decide a one -week break, with a really much party.

Mourning

Christine lost her husband, the man she had learned and loved after a good 40 years of looking for a real partner and with whom she had lived and worked for a good decade. In a small space, with very little separated time, not without conflicts, but without problems.

Since then, she has mourn in a desperate, angry, angry and at the same time lost form of grief, which does not adhere to the four prescribed phases of coping with mourning. Because this grief takes too long, well -meaning friends urge them to start therapy, and cope with mourning sometimes needs help. At some point she gives in to have her calm, well -meaning friends can be very persistent if you think you have discovered the right way.

The first therapist holds a kind of lessons. She teaches Christine the four phases of coping with grief -which it already knows -very detailed and without being interrupted. In phase 1, the very typical first reaction is denied to the shocking message:

"That can't be right, it must be a mistake.".

We do not want to admit that the inevitable has really occurred. The first shock puts us in a kind of trance. We protect ourselves. And it takes a while until we realize that reality is stronger than denying.

She is not interested in the fact that Christine is not able to deny for a time because she would prefer to consciously and actively and thus actually not differently structured.

Christine is in contact with Barbara Fredrickson, psychologist at the positive emotions and psychophysiology laboratory of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She had already written several articles about their work on “Discovering the best in people” (a whole field of experiments and studies about positive emotions and optimistic attitudes) before even thinking about any grief work, and – of course – she hasn't stopped since.

The therapist isn't interested in that either; all she manages to say is a mocking, "Oh, so German psychologists aren't enough, are they?" Listening is difficult for Christine under these circumstances. She's already experienced the full force of her emotions (Phase 2), as well as acceptance; she just needs some help with reorientation (Phase 3), a little support in experiencing joy and calming the sometimes overwhelming pain.

The second therapist advocates for exercise and refuses to accept that Christine's emotional pain has caused psychosomatic symptoms, which mean her body can't tolerate anything more than long walks at the moment. She believes that only proper running will help in the long run, something Christine can see for herself in the film "Run Against Grief".

In the film, a once legendary marathon runner in old age and in the absence of other ideas in hectic training breaks out, destination Berlin marathon, and as his wife, also dies to run away from his grief. She is not interested in the fact that Christine's competition between individuals between young people, which is useful in youth, but neither physically, nor mentally or socially useful.

She just doesn't joges that Christine does not go in her grief, but has started a lot of new projects. She is the specialist and runs, and she doesn't have other ideas until Christine thankfully waived her care.

The third therapist speaks to her long and interested, she is extremely interested in her work and encourages Christine to do anything. Sometimes it is just about small thoughts, a step in the right direction that Christine might have already thought of.

With the support of someone who takes others seriously, such a thought process becomes possible, and the therapist also has ideas for entirely different steps. Christine has been planning for some time to finally start painting again, to truly relax and concentrate at the easel, but so far it has remained limited to small color studies, a regular ring-shaped pad and crayons; black and red scribbles also help relieve some stress. When the therapist hears this, she makes Christine a suggestion that is “lacking in reverence for Munch”:

She should take on Edvard Munch's accursed "The Scream" and, by recreating this image herself, understand how positive thinking gradually reshapes the brain, new nerve pathways, little by little "friendlier alliances", out of grief.

That the human brain can be changed through such exercises has now been scientifically proven, and to repeatedly change the “scream” from darkly threatening to a gentle landscape with people in whatever good mood is certainly an incredibly exciting task.

Christine has already dealt a lot with Munch and replied that she would enjoy giving this poor person more happiness to this poor person, so to speak.

While she follows the therapist's proposal and indulges in a wealth of friendly colors after some pictures, she also reads more about Munch, she is looking for (and finds, a little) the positive:

The first German title that Munch himself gave to his work was “Schrei der Natur” (Cry of Nature) ; on a graphic version he even wrote in German: “Ich fühlen das große Geschrei, wie es durch die Natur geht.” (I felt the great cry, as it goes through nature.)

A lot can be made of it, of course nature is a single shouting, but also a diverse and wonderful shouting -Christine begins to plan flower tendrils or pots on the bridge for the next version.

She also finds two truly cheerful Munch paintings: “The Seine at Saint-Cloud” from 1890, now in the Munch Museum Oslo, and “Spring on Karl Johans gate” from 1890, now in the Bergen Picture Gallery – well, there you go!

The presentation

Annika has taken art performance course because she has long understood that she has enough to do with the subtleties of biology (second advanced course) and the NC could require a high-level ABI quotient for her target subject at the time of her abis.

Physics (with technical projects) and chemistry as the third and fourth examination subject run loosely, organic better and better since they no longer posted stupid status reports during waiting times, but rather practices mnemotechnics.

But the advanced art class, of all things, is now acting as a real obstacle, with the presentation topic 'Edvard Munch's "The Scream" – a description of the painting with background information' . When she gets home, she's furious: "I'm supposed to describe the painting that's probably the most horrific in the world, and the ugliest to boot!" "You were just trying to abbreviate with 'advanced art class' ," her mother replies, turning away unmoved.

Annika stands out, she first deals with the picture, image description: In the center, a person with a wide open mouth is shown frontally who put the arms on the head, stares into the area with empty eyes - and screams. And so on and so on, stands on bridge, two figures further back, a few ships, water and heaven in wild shapes and colors ... expression, design means, lines, evaluation: grotesque, visualized inner hell.

Annika also deals with Edvard Munch's life : 12.12.1863 born in Norway and died on January 23, 1944 81 years old. Growing up in Oslo, with a religiously fanatic father, who still married a twenty year younger, who soon died of tuberculosis.

Munch was five and had five siblings, the older sister died of consumption, the younger sister had depression, the only brother who married, died shortly after the wedding, Munch himself was manic-depressive (no wonder in family history) and, to make matters worse, had also inherited the tendency to consumption.

Munch studied painting at the Royal School of Art and Design in Kristiania. In 1885 (at the age of 22), he began his first romantic relationship. In 1886, his first painting in his self-invented "Art of Memory , "The Sick Child," a complete failure at the autumn exhibition in Kristiania. In 1887, his girlfriend left him for another man. This was followed by thoughts of death, hallucinations, and melancholy, and resulted in a series of paintings with the absurd aura of "The Scream." If only his girlfriend had stayed with him!

Annika is now exploring the origin of "The Scream" and its history: There are many legends about the origin of the Scream; the background color, which changes from light orange to dark red-orange over the years of the four paintings' creation, is said to be due to the eruption of Krakatoa (volcano in Indonesia) in 1883; the Scream motif was inspired by Inca mummies at an exhibition Munch visited in Paris in 1889; or by the suicide of the Norwegian painter Kalle Løchen.

Munch is said to have completed the first three versions during his stay in Berlin from 1892 to 1896, but Annika Berlin does not find that terrible, it will hardly be because of that; Nobody knows exactly anyway, Munch probably commented little about his screaming motifs.

At least the screams have been quite popular for a long time, the first theft happened in 1994, on February 12, the temperature version of 1893 disappeared from the Norwegian National Gallery, three months later (unfortunately, according to Annika's view), the police were locked up for several years (instead of commendation).

The second theft followed on August 22, 2004: an armed robbery by masked perpetrators at the Munch Museum in Oslo. The tempera version from 1910 and a "Madonna" by Munch, reminiscent of Christiane F. in its most pitiable state, were stolen. Unfortunately, six of the seven perpetrators were apprehended in 2006 for a robbery at a cash depot in Stavanger. Screams and broken Madonnas apparently didn't sell as well back then as they would just a few years later at Sotheby's .

But at least one of the criminals could probably make the pictures usable in exchange against punishment, they were secured on August 31, 2006 by the Norwegian police and from September 27, 2006, they were still presented in a rampant state for a few days, surprisingly, 5500 visitors had missed their munch pictures.

When Annika has gotten about this far and is thinking with very, very little joy about the work ahead of her of formulating and supplementing, she comes across an entry in Munch's diary entitled "Nice, January 22, 1892" , containing the prose poem "Scream" :

I went down the street with two friends. The sun went down - the sky became blood red and I felt a touch of melancholy. I stood quietly, dead tired - above the blue -black fjord and the city were blood and fiery tongues. My friends continued - I stayed behind - trembling with fear - I felt the big cry in nature ... I painted this picture - painted the clouds like real blood - the colors shouted. "

Annika laughs and thinks: Does she have the chuzdown to turn the whole presentation and say that only the colors of heaven screamed in beautiful Nice? At first she leaves it open, the preoccupation with the person and pictures of the painter Edvard Munch have initially put her mood quite sustainably.

She thus concludes the preliminary work for the presentation, noting that it is quite understandable why the mask of the killer “Ghostface” in the film Scream and the Silences from the television series “Doctor Who” were modeled after Munch’s screaming person.

And finally a contribution by the Klugschisser for the 150th birthday of the artist: