The Scream motif is part of Munch’s The Frieze of Life series, a chronicle of modern life’s milestones and vicissitudes — love, loss, death and their attendant emotions. But unlike virtually all the other works in The Frieze of Life cycle, the Screams eschew oil on canvas for oil, pastel, crayon, and ink on cardboard and paper, presumably to create a raw, rough-hewn effect that mirrors the tumultuous emotional state of the central character.
For Munch is believed to be an early Symbolist and forerunner of the Abstract Expressionists. He was painting emotions and inner feelings. Van Gogh was an early guide (think The Starry Night’s raging sky), Curator Temkin writes in a scholarly monograph published by MoMA to accompany the show:
“In The Scream, an overall design subsumes the sky, water, and land in wavy bands of color for a final effect that approaches abstraction. As Van Gogh had done before him, Munch projected an emotional state onto the representation of a landscape. Here [in The Scream], the sinuous lines, echoing the curves of the head, embody the figure’s psyche as much as they depict the external environment.”
Munch is believed to have prepared the pastel version at the request of an early collector of his work, German coffee tycoon Arthur von Franquet. Franquet was such a fan that he even purchased a lithograph of The Scream (Munch made some 30 lithographs of the subject in his lifetime, typically working with black ink and using white or beige paper).
The curators at MoMA are well aware that the image — a nightmarish vision of emotional crisis — can seem hackneyed and trite given its ubiquity and commercialization (the figure’s ghostly face is trotted out every Halloween on masks, for starters). But Ms. Temkin puts the work in perspective, noting that its many peculiarities can get lost in translation — one eye is round, the other oval-shaped; one nostril blue, the other brown; the face has no pastel coloration at all, but is just “raw paper.” All these effects add to the chaotic scene.
In short, there is no substitute for the original. As Ms. Tempkin writes:
“We do know … that [it], in all the variants Munch created, remains distinct from the cliché it has become. This is because a work of art is much more than an image that is reproducible manually, digitally, and endlessly. It is instead a thing whose effect depends on specifics of size, texture, color, and any number of intangible qualities stemming from its moment of origin. Such a work catalyzes a unique experience every time an attentive viewer stands before it.”
Viewers should prepare for protective Plexiglas and flashing iPhones. And step into the next gallery for a view of The Starry Night on the wall opposite the main attraction. Hat-tip to the curators for arranging the face-off.
©2013 Val Castronovo for SeniorWomen.com
Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait With Cigarette, 1895; oil on canvas, 43 1/2 x 33 11/16" (110.5 x 85.5 cm). The National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design/National Gallery, Oslo
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889; oil on canvas, 29 in x 36 1/4 inches (73.7 cm x 92.1 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York City
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