Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul ~ Edvard Munch
Edvard ©️2020 LSAuth.
The first time I viewed The Scream by Norwegian painter, Edvard Munch, was on a large projection screen. I was 18 years old, taking a year “off” after high school graduation, feeling a bit lost. I was living with an older sister in Charlottesville, Va. While she was finishing her last year at the University, I was trying to figure out how to structure the next chapter of my life. I worked a day job as a dental assistant while I took evening classes at the University night school. One of the first classes I took that fall was Modern Art History.
Of all the formal classes I had ever taken before that time, this was the first one to really change my life. I had never experienced such challenging and rigorous material before. With endless reading material of literature, philosophy, critical essays, and art, it was truly my first taste of what a University life could be about. I adored this class and thrived.
My professor welcomed my thoughts on Munch’s Scream. I remember telling her that I thought I understood the originality of Munch, and the expressionist “angst“ of its time, but with all that expressed internal turmoil, I still saw it as cartoonish, and was not emotionally moved.
All these years later, with many glimpses of The Scream reproduced on everything from canvas bags to coasters, I still feel the same way.
Several months ago, I was slapped with a large dose of irony when I walked by this huge catalpa—the largest one on Vanderbilt campus. There was Munch’s figure, perhaps laughing at me, mocking me, getting his revenge. The only way I could exorcise this nagging vision from my mind was to attempt to paint this magnificent tree, riddled with sapsucker drill wells, as faithfully as I could.
But I still see The Scream…do you?
