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Expressionism · 1893
Edvard Munch 1863–1944
National Museum · Oslo
A figure claps its hands to its head under a blood-red sky, mouth open in a cry — modern anxiety made into an icon.
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The world it was painted in, the life of the painter, and a close reading of the details. This film is free in Hear Art.
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Chapter 1 of 7
Norway, eighteen ninety-three. Edvard Munch sets down what he called a painting of the modern soul. He described the moment himself: walking with two friends at sunset, he stopped, exhausted, as the sky turned blood-red, and felt, in his words, a great, infinite scream pass through nature.
This is not a person screaming. It is a person hearing the scream of the world.
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