Merry Christmas...and Happy New Year...

Colour your heart
with Chirstmas lights
draw a smile
and get rid of your sadness. . .

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Mary said to me that she loved this picture and she had it in her bedroom.

So I'm sending you some information about the author and the painting...

Why is he screaming?

Things that make us want to sream.(please, send your opinion)

Short biography:

He was born on December 12, 1863 in Loton, Norway. He was the son of an Army Medical Corps doctor, Christian Munch. His mother had the name of Laura Catherine. Edvard was the second of five children.

In 1864, their family moved to the city of Oslo. This is where he originated his art training.

In the early 1800's, Edvard Munch became influenced by two older comrades, Christian Krohg and Frits Thaulow. They were into the Norwegian art scene, and had painting based on French naturalism.

In May of 1885, a scholarship from Frits Thaulow, had Edvard Munch travel to Paris. Edvard Munch stayed there for three weeks, and then he spent the summer at Borre and returned to Oslo to begin three of his major works. That is the time when his work began to be widely known.

Sources of inspiration

Munch wrote, concerning the image:

"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

A new:

In 2003, astronomers claimed to have identified the time that the painting depicted. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 caused unusually intense sunsets throughout Europe in the winter of 1883-4, which Munch captured in his picture.

A mummy:

In 1978, the renowned Munch scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange, sexless creature in the foreground of the painting was probably inspired by a Peruvian mummy which Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was crouching in fetal position with its hands alongside its face, also struck the imagination of Munch's friend Paul Gauguin: it stood model for the central figure in his painting Human misery (Grape harvest at Arles) and for the old woman at the left in his painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. More recently, an Italian anthropologist speculated that Munch might have seen a mummy in Florence's Museum of Natural History which bears an even more striking resemblance to the painting.

A curiosity:

On August 22, 2004 this version, executed in tempera on cardboard, was stolen from the Munch Museum, Oslo, at gunpoint.
Thieves taking paintings from the Munch Museum, August 2004On 12 February 1994 the National Gallery's Scream was stolen. Initially the theft was linked to various anti-abortion groups active in Norway, but this turned out to be false. After three months, the painting was offered back to the Norwegian government for a ransom of USD $1 million. The ransom was refused, but the painting was nevertheless recovered on 7 May, following a sting operation organised by the Norwegian police with assistance from the British Police and the Getty Museum.