The archive / Expressionism / The Scream
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The Scream
Edvard Munch · 1863–1944
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3 variations + a matched story print, every standard frame ratio. 300 DPI · sRGB · personal-use license.
Museum-quality giclée on Hahnemühle German Etching — heavyweight 310gsm, acid-free, velvety matte. Made to order & shipped.
Sizes in the download
Ready-to-print files at every size below — each drops straight into a standard frame at 300 DPI, nothing cropped:
Each of these also prints big-wall at 150 DPI — up to about 36″ on the short side (so the 24×36″ becomes 36×54″), for a step-back view. Or print the borderless master, the full-resolution scan, sharp to about 18×24″.
The work
A scream Munch heard pass through nature.
Edvard Munch reworked an earlier 1892 composition into this 1893 painting, the version now held by Norway's National Museum. It marks a pivotal turn from Symbolism toward Expressionism, and has become a universal image of anxiety. It is also only one of several: Munch made four versions of the motif, two painted and two in pastel, along with a lithograph.
Look closer
Two riddles hidden in the surface.
At the upper left, a tiny pencil inscription reads 'Can only have been painted by a madman' — and infrared analysis led the National Museum to confirm that Munch wrote it himself. Near the figure's shoulder, white spots long taken for bird droppings turned out, under synchrotron X-ray analysis, to be wax.
Why it matters
The painting the world tried to take.
On the opening day of the 1994 Winter Olympics, this 1893 version was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo. It was recovered later that same year.
One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord – the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream.— Edvard Munch, diary entry headed 'Nice 22 January 1892'
The file & the facts
- Title
- The Scream
- Artist
- Edvard Munch
- Year
- 1893
- Medium
- Oil, tempera & pastel on cardboard
- Original
- 91 × 73.5 cm
- Collection
- National Museum of Norway
- Rights
- Open access · personal use
- File
- 300 DPI · sRGB · JPEG
