The Scream

Edvard Munch’s The Scream is one of those images that instantly feels familiar, even if you’ve never stepped foot in an art museum. Painted in 1893, this iconic piece of modern art captures an experience that’s both unsettling and oddly relatable. Munch, a Norwegian artist navigating his own personal storms of anxiety, created The Scream as a kind of visual diary entry. He once described feeling “an infinite scream passing through nature”—a phrase that pretty much sums up the intense emotion surging through the painting.

At first glance, The Scream might look deceptively simple, with its bright colors, curving lines, and that unforgettable open-mouthed figure. But look closer, and you’ll notice that Munch was toying with distortion and expression in a way that was groundbreaking for the time. Unlike the precise realism popular in the 1800s, Munch leaned into bold, emotional abstraction, helping pave the way for Expressionism—a movement that put raw feeling front and center.

This single artwork has become a global symbol of anxiety and dread, universally understood across cultures. It’s fair to say The Scream cemented Munch’s place in art history, not just as a painter of pretty pictures but as an artist brave enough to confront the uncomfortable, long before it was trendy.