Edvard Munch had
a hard life. A doctor's son, he had a bleak
childhood in Oslo. "My home was the home of illness, agony and death", he
was to write in his memoirs. His mother died of tuberculosis at the age of
thirty, leaving behind four children. Edvard was only six at the time. In
her letter of farewell she wrote: "And now, my dear children, my sweet
little ones, I say farewell to you. Your father will be able to tell you
about how to get to Heaven better than I can. I'll be there waiting for
you all." A pious woman who accepted her fate, all she could do was to
hope for joy in the world to come — certainly not a legacy likely to
inspire happiness and a zest for living in her children. Until he was
thirteen, every time Edvard had a fever he was convinced that he was going
to die. Influenced by his mother's negative way of viewing things, he
vowed never to look forward to anything again. His father, at heart a good
man, was distressing to his children. A sister of
Munch's had already died of
tuberculosis and, after the death of his beloved wife,
Munch's father took refuge in
fanatical pietism, forcing a strict regimen of prayer on his children.
When he was older, Edvard argued incessantly with his
father, while a second sister became a religious fanatic who was
eventually declared insane.
From around 1889 onwards, Edvard became increasingly
depressive, suffering from occasional fits of terror. Yet, by the age of
seventeen, he had discovered another language with which to express his
feelings of desperation: painting. It promised relief, consolation and
hope. In a state of feverish excitement, he concluded that "the curse on
mankind has become the undertone of my art — and my paintings pages in my
diary". His visits to Paris and Berlin proved to be a great inspiration
and, at the age of twenty-eight, he painted The Scream — an
archetype of human experience on canvas. All the terrors of human
existence seem to concentrate in the face, twisted with fear. Like so many
other paintings of his, The Scream is, as
Edvard Munch
said himself, "a bitterly earnest scene — and a child of sleepless nights,
which have taken their toll in blood and nerves".
