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http://www.cincypost.com/2004/08/24/scream082404.html
Painting symbol of age of angst
Paintings earn reputations in a myriad of ways. There's Mona Lisa's shy smile, Salvador Dali's flaming giraffes and melting clocks and then there's "The Scream" -- a piece of art that has become an universal icon for an anxiety-ridden age.
The image is used for everything from T-shirts and mugs to posters and blow-up punching bags (see today's Jeff Stahler cartoon). It's been seen in sit-coms, referenced in romance novels and become the visual theme for not one, but two series of American films. And "The Scream" Halloween mask has become an instant classic.
That pop culture has embraced this particular painting is telling. That only a small percentage of those who know the work can name the artist only proves the point that it's the emotional association and not necessarily the artistic merit that has made "The Scream" one of the most recognized paintings in history.
Thrust into the headlines because of its recent thaft at gunpoint from an Oslo Museum, Edvard Munch, Norwegian Symbolist and Expressionist, actually created four versions of the chilling scene on the bridge in 1893. The bald figure, seen hands to face in horror, has long been attributed to it's creator's own madness. Because Munch himself was a tormented soul, many of his works reflect cataclysmic and apocalyptic themes. Still, although the prolific artist created thousands of painting, prints and drawings in his lifetime, no other is as powerful.
Historians agree that Munch's own impending nervous breakdown played a role in the intensity captured in each of the variations on the theme (described as tempera and pastel on board with preliminary versions on "paper board"). But the inspiration may have come as much from nature as the artist's mental state. The four panels were painted following the eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa, which may have been the cause of the red sky that so frightened Munch.
As he described it in his journal: "I was walking along the road with two friends -- then the Sun set -- all at once the sky became blood red -- and I felt overcome with melancholy. I stood still and leaned against the railing, dead tired -- clouds like blood and tongues of fire hung above the blue-black fjord and the city. My friends went on and I stood alone, trembling with anxiety. I felt a great, unending scream piercing through nature."
This week's daytime theft is not the first. Several versions have been stolen and returned in the past. Although there are private collectors who might bankroll such a bold heist knowing that the work could never be shown, the goal is usually to ransom the piece back to the owner.
The brazen daylight theft of Munch's renowned masterpiece left Norway's police scrambling for clues and stirred a debate across Europe over how to protect art.
Armed, masked robbers stormed into Oslo's Munch Museum in broad daylight Sunday, terrifying patrons before they made off with a version of "The Scream" and another Munch masterpiece, "Madonna."
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