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“The Scream” (1893), by Edvard Munch
After all, the little message hidden in Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream” was written by the artist himself. A new investigation thus puts an end to one of the most enduring mysteries of modern art.
“It could only have been painted by a crazy man!”This is the almost invisible phrase that can be read in the upper left corner of the painting and has been the subject of debate for several decades. So far, writes the CNN, it was thought that the phrase was the result of an act of vandalism.
Recently, curators at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway, Oslo, claimed to have unveiled one of the most enduring mysteries of modern art. After all, it will have been Edvard Munch writing the sentence.
“The writing is undoubtedly Munch’s own,” concluded Mai Britt Guleng, the museum’s curator. The inscription “has now been examined very carefully, letter by letter and word by word, and it is identical in every respect to Munch’s handwriting.”
“There is no more doubt,” said the person in charge of the investigation.
The phrase, practically imperceptible to the naked eye, was analyzed with the help of infrared technology and compared with the artist’s notes and letters. Munch “didn’t write in big letters for everyone to see, you have to look very carefully to see ”, details Britt Guleng.
The expressionist masterpiece is one of the most celebrated works of modern times, heralded as a timeless representation of human anxiety. Edvard Munch (1863-1944) spent several years of his life in a psychiatric clinic, where he was admitted after a nervous breakdown in 1908.
“O Grito” is undergoing restoration with a view to a new exhibition. After it was stolen in 2004 (and recovered shortly afterwards), the work was seldom on display.
Liliana Malainho, ZAP //
