Azizart April 2016

The oppressive religious milieu,
plus Edvard's poor health and the
vivid ghost stories, helped inspire
his macabre visions and
nightmares; the boy felt that death
was constantly advancing on
him.One of Munch's younger sisters
was diagnosed with mental illness
at an early age. Of the five siblings,
only Andreas married, but he died
a few months after the wedding.
Munch would later write, "I
inherited two of mankind's most
frightful enemies—the heritage of
consumption and insanity."
Christian Munch's military pay was
very low, and his attempts to
develop a private side practice
failed, keeping his family in genteel
but perennial poverty. They moved
frequently from one cheap flat to
another. Munch's early drawings
and watercolors depicted these
interiors, and the individual
objects, such as medicine bottles
and drawing implements, plus
some landscapes. By his teens, art
dominated Munch's interests. At
thirteen, Munch had his first
exposure to other artists at the
newly formed Art Association,
where he admired the work of the
Norwegian landscape school. He
returned to copy the paintings, and
soon he began to paint in oils.
The Scream
The Scream (1893)
The Scream exists in four versions:
two pastels (1893 and 1895) and
two paintings (1893 and 1910).
There are also several lithographs
of The Scream (1895 and later).
The 1895 pastel sold at auction on
2 May 2012 for US$119,922,500,
including commission. It is the most
colorful of the versions and is
distinctive for the downwardlooking
stance of one of its
background figures. It is also the
only version not held by a
Norwegian museum.