More to 'The Scream' than meets the eye

Australian Broadcasting ^ | December 10, 2003

[Lessismore]

For those who have ever wondered why the sky is a lurid red in The Scream, Edvard Munch's painting of modern angst, astronomers have an answer.

They blame it on a volcanic eruption half a world away.

In the first detailed analysis of what inspired the painting, an article in Sky and Telescope magazine pinpointed the location in Norway where Munch and his friends were walking when the artist saw the blood-red sky he depicted in the 1893 painting.

Donald Olson, a physics and astronomy professor at Texas State University, and his colleagues determined that debris thrown into the atmosphere by the great eruption at the island of Krakatoa, in modern Indonesia, created vivid red twilights in Europe from November 1883 through February 1884.

The astronomers say that at the time, the local newspaper in what is now Oslo reported that the phenomenon was widely seen.

Mr Olson and his colleagues suggest that Munch drew his inspiration for the sky in the painting from these volcanic twilights and not from his own imagination.

The most famous version of The Scream was painted in 1893 as part of The Frieze of Life, a group of works derived by Munch's personal experiences, including the deaths of his mother in 1868 and his sister in 1877.

These works were created in the 1890s, but have established origins in earlier decades.

To reach their conclusion, the astronomers determined Munch's vantage point in the painting.

"One of the high points of our research trip to Oslo came when we rounded a bend in the road and realised we were standing in the exact spot where Munch had been 120 years ago," Mr Olson said in a statement.

"It was very satisfying to stand in the exact spot where an artist had his experience," he said.

"The real importance of finding the location, though, was to determine the direction of view in the painting. We could see that Munch was looking to the south-west, exactly where the Krakatoa twilights appeared in the winter of 1883-84."

[RosieCotton]

Hm...not sure I believe it, but interesting just the same.

Natural disasters are fascinating, given enough time and space between them and me!

[martin_fierro]

Related thread

[RosieCotton]

Thanks

[dagnabbit]

If you're ever feeling just too darned happy - stop by the Munch museum in Oslo. Lots of images of the sick, dead and dying there that'll help you level out a bit.

[RosieCotton]

On the other hand, it might just make you realize how good you really have it! ;-)

I like Thomas Hardy for the same reason. My life couldn't possibly be THAT dark.

[yooper]

I was in Houghton, Michigan, a city kinda out in the middle of Lake Superior, in the months following the eruption of Mount St. Helens. The sunsets to the west were breathtaking in their beauty; I've not seen anything remotely like them since.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I've got a better explanation.

Some of my ancestors came over in the late 1870's from Norway. The great immigration of northern Europe took place between 1840 and 1900, or there about.

As I see it, it took a generation for the losers that stayed behind to see what kind of sh*thole they were really stuck with and what was coming.

The red twilight in Munche's painting is what lies over the horizon. In this case (and you probably guessed it), laid the full realization of what the commies were going to do to them, their property and their lives.

The fact that the haunting image has a triangular, alien looking head is also a confirmation that this is a European problem and has nothing whatsoever to do with us.

Well, that's the interpretation from a well respected art critic on construction sites all across Minnesota.

[Phantom Lord]

[lugsoul]

Whoops... Thought this was a Howard Dean thread.