"I don’t paint what I see, but what I’ve seen. I paint and I think in the present. I see in the past and the future."
Edvard Munch (artist)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oslo, Norway, in the late 1880s. The painter Edvard Munch is out with two friends, enjoying a sunset stroll. But something isn’t right. Though his companions continue walking, the artist stops dead in his tracks. What causes Munch to freeze up?
|
|
Edvard Munch, "At The Coffee Table", 1883, oil on canvas, 30.5 x 17.9 in, The Munich Museum, Munich.
Enlarge Image
|
|
|
|
|
|
As he later explained, he was terrified by the sunset! "Suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood… Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord." He heard, "the enormous infinite scream of nature."
The painter, an Expressionist who was more concerned with conveying what he felt inside than what he saw outside, immortalized this agonizing moment ten years later. With wide, fluid brushstrokes, he created his famous The Scream.
Was Munch overreacting or was this moment really as apocalyptic as the artist made it sound?
|
|
Edvard Munch, "The Scream", 1893, 35.8 x 29 in, National Gallery, Oslo, Norway.
Enlarge Image
|
|
|
|
|
|
According to astrophysicists from Texas State University, Munch wasn’t crying wolf. 100 years after he completed The Scream, these scientists decided to investigate its origins a little further.
They figured that only an unusual event could have caused the sky to turn "as red as blood" the way Munch described and painted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Turns out that on August 27th, 1883, Krakatoa, a volcano in present-day Indonesia, violently erupted. This natural disaster caused nearly 40,000 deaths, unleashed an immense tsunami and sent shock waves around the world.
The sound that this explosion emitted is considered the loudest ever heard by humans! Could this have been the "infinite scream" that hit Munch’s ears?
Since the sound of the explosion couldn’t have travelled as far as Norway, it’s unlikely. But the investigators says that the colors which Munch was so impressed by definitely came from this apocalyptic explosion.
|
|
Unknown artist, "Eruoption of the Krakatoa Volcano in 1883", lithograph.
Enlarge Image
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 I don’t paint what I see, but what I’ve seen. I paint and I think in the present. I see in the past and the future.
|
Edvard Munch (artist) 
|
|
Edvard Munch, "Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm, 1895, lithograph, 17.7 x 12.6 in, The British Museum, London.
Enlarge Image
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The painter Edvard Munch was from which northern European country?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Rate this story
|
We'd love to hear from you!
Contact Co-Founders Coline and Jean at hello@artips.co.
|
|
|
|
|
|
