Edvard Munch's The Scream, explained

Since its completion in 1893, the ghostly figure that stands at the center of The Scream has become one of the most replicated images in the modern age. Even Edvard Munch, the painting’s artist, couldn’t help replicating the famous work an additional three times in oil or pastel in the following years, as well as in a number of lithographs. Despite the painting’s popularity, much ambiguity remains regarding who the painting’s primary subject is supposed to be. Is this figure a ghost or a human? Did Munch assign a gender to his subject, or did he hope to create an image that could be felt universally? While the answers are unclear, Munch did provide some context as to what inspired the painting in the first place. From the environment to the emotion, The Scream is intimately tied to an experience Munch had in 1892. During a walk along a path outside Kristiania, which is now known as Oslo, Norway, the artist suddenly felt excruciating pain in his chest just as the sun began to set. As the sun fell, Munch began to feel weak, and the sky turned a color that he said resembled blood. Overcome with pain, Munch described that it seemed like an “infinite scream” tore through the nature around him, a scream embodied by the painting’s subject. Beyond the screaming figure and the uneasy coloring of the painting, the scene is relatively normal. Behind the figure, two individuals walk along the Kristiania Fjord, and boats sail along the fjord. The dissonance between the anguish of the figure in the foreground and the everyday scene in the background has made many viewers believe that Munch hoped to convey a physical representation of existential angst— a moment in which individuals feel at odds with the world that surrounds them.