The Scream

The story of The Scream

A figure on a bridge presses both hands to its face while the sky behind it turns to bands of orange and blood-red. Two people walk on without noticing. Munch made the first version in 1893, in tempera and crayon, and later wrote that he had felt a scream pass through nature on a walk above Oslo. That version is in the National Museum in Norway. It became one of the most reproduced images on earth because it is the rare painting that shows a feeling rather than a face, and everyone recognizes the feeling.

On a wall, The Scream is louder than its reputation suggests. The sky is pure saturated orange and yellow, the fjord is deep blue and near-black, and the bridge cuts through on a hard diagonal, so it carries a room from across it. It suits a home office, a music room, a teenager's bedroom, or a living room with dark or neutral walls that can absorb the color. It leans modern: mid-century, industrial, or anything with black metal and warm wood. It is a tall image. The Large at 24 × 29.8 in is the size that makes it feel like the real thing, and the Medium at 16 × 19.9 in works well as the anchor of a gallery wall.

Munch painted the same nerves over and over. Anxiety is the same bridge with a crowd of pale faces, Madonna has the same swirling line in a very different mood, and The Dance of Life is the calmer summer evening on the other side of it. More from Edvard Munch.

Printed in our studio from a public-domain photograph of the 1893 National Museum version, with the cardboard texture and crayon marks left visible.