Who vandalised The Scream? The painter himself, Edvard Munch

New research has proven that it was the artist who scribbled on his most famous work
New research has confirmed that Munch scribbled on his own work
National Museum of Norway

It’s so well-known, and so expressive, that it even serves as an emoji. The Scream, by Edvard Munch, is known the world over as a shorthand for that feeling, so familiar right now, of being totally overwhelmed by the grimness of it all.

When the painting was first exhibited, in Oslo (then Kristiania) in 1893, it had a similarly immediate effect, causing strong criticism and public speculation about the artist’s mental state. There was even a small, pencilled graffiti message added to the painting, in the top left-hand corner, reading “Can only have been painted by a madman”.

Who the culprit was has long been a subject of speculation among art historians, but new tests by the National Museum of Norway have confirmed that, far from being vandalism by a snide, furious commentator, the graffiti was added to the painting by Munch himself, probably in response to the hurtful criticism it provoked.

The discovery was made as part of the conservation process in advance of The Scream, which was stolen for ransom in March 1994 but recovered by means of a sting operation two months later, going on display with a number of other works by Munch at the new National Museum, now set to open in 2022. Curators used infrared technology to analyse the writing and compare it with the painter’s own diary and letters.

“The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own,” said the museum’s curator, Mai Britt Guleng. “The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction.”

Munch’s life was overshadowed by a dread of mental illness - he suffered the loss of both his mother and his favourite sister, Johanne Sophie, before the age of 14, and as well as his own anxieties, he was haunted by the fear of the deep depression that afflicted both his father and another of his sisters. He was forced to give up heavy drinking himself after he was hospitalised following a breakdown in 1908, though in later life he became more stable, encouraged by public acclaim for his work and painting up until his death at the age of 80.

He would even credit his emotional state as the driver for much of his success, saying, “For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. Without this anxiety and illness I would have been like a ship without a rudder.”

The new National Museum of Norway will open in 2022.

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