This finding will make art lovers scream again.
Edvard Munch’s “Scream” – an 1893 expressionist painting so famous that it has its own emoji – contains a disturbing hidden message that art historians have determined was written by the artist himself.
The pencil inscription says, “It may only have been painted by a madman,” infrared scans have shown.
And although historians have long known about the phrase, small and hidden among the distorted brushstrokes that make up the howling figure, it has been speculated that it was painted by an observer, not by the Norwegian artist.
But that mystery can now be put to bed, said Mai Britt Guleng, curator of old masters and modern paintings at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway, owner of the painting.
Guleng and his staff made the advanced discovery after comparing the writing of the inscription with the newspapers and letters of the Norwegian artist.
“The writing is certainly Munch’s own,” he told the BBC. “The writing itself, as well as the events of 1895, when Munch first showed the painting in Norway, all point in the same direction.”
The mysterious origins of the phrase help complete a sad picture: Munch created the painting, which has now become a universal symbol for deadly anxiety, just after his sister Laura was engaged in a disorderly asylum. bipolar.
Although the figure he calls does not resemble him, he is believed to have been influenced by his own experience of observing a blood-red sky after being abandoned by two companions, seen in the background. At the time, he was hit by a “streak of melancholy,” according to his diary.
After Munch unveiled the painting, the reactions focused on his own mental health, rather than the painting itself.
Experts said it made sense for Munch to write the inscription “crazy” after struggling with the many criticisms of the time. In 1908 he suffered a mental breakdown.
“It’s a combination of being ironic, but also showing your vulnerability,” Guleng told the Guardian. “Actually, he is being taken very seriously and is injured because there is a history of illness in his family and he was very anxious, but he was marked by that.”