Dark Dreams: Painful Memories: The Scream

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As the famous Henry Ward Beecher said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Henry Ward Beecher Quotes). Throughout history, noteworthy works of art have often been shaped by the emotions of their artists rather than the physical characteristics of the subjects depicted – as if they illustrated not the reality, but the dreams of their creators. For many prominent artists, these dreams are dark nightmares of painful memories. “The Abbey In Oakwood” by Caspar David Friedrich, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, “March to the Scaffold” by Hector Berlioz, “Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas” by Otto Dix, and “A Thousand Li Of Rivers and Mountains” by Wang Xi Meng are all famous pieces that connect to the theme of “Dark Dreams: Painful Memories”. As you explore this gallery, notice how all the artworks exhibited connect to the same theme in significantly disparate ways.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Scream

The Scream, created in 1893 by Edvard Munch, eminent Norwegian expressionism artist, portrays a queer, human-like creature screaming in agony. The Scream is Munch’s most well-known work andcontains expressions of anguish, isolation, and fear. Similar to Caspar David Friedrich, Munch also believed that a piece of art should reflect the painter’s perspective on the subject (Arthur).

Munch creates the scene in the painting with a surreal style, forming the ocean and the sky with thick strokes of lurid colors. The ironic combination of vividness and simplicity of the background conveys a powerful yet crude feeling for the scene depicted. This feeling complements those of the screaming figure whose distorted figure seems to experience extreme yet primitive anguish. This irony and crudeness renders The Scream a powerful piece of work that would effect generations to come.

Edvard Munch had a tragic life and suffered from numerous misfortunes; he often used art as a medium to express his grief. Munch suffered from a phobia of open space and the fear expressed by the main figure is a depiction of Munch’s feeling when a severe discomfort suddenly overcame him while he was walking with two friends (Labedzki). He wrote in his diary in 1982, describing the scene using the words:

“I was walking along the road with two friends.

The sun was setting.

I felt a breath of melancholy -

Suddenly the sky turned blood-red.

I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired - looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and town. My friends walked on – I stood there, trembling with fear.

And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature.”

The anguish that The Scream shows is also an outburst of the agony that Munch suffered from disease, deaths of his loved ones, and insanity (Labedzki).

The painting clearly connects to the overall theme of “Dark Dreams: Painful Memories.” Although an actual event inspired Munch’s creation of The Scream, it is evident that the painting does not describe a physical scene. In fact, the painting conveys a hallucination, or dreamlike experience produced by Munch’s strained mental state. The distortion of both the background and the character in the painting only further emphasize that the painting portrays an emotion inspired by his natural phobia and painful experiences.

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If you liked my blog...

If you enjoyed my blog, you may also find Catherine’s blog – Shattered Dreams and Hopeless Desires – intriguing.

Catherine’s gallery’s theme relates in many ways to that of mine. While my gallery Dark Dreams: Painful Memories displays artists’ upsetting dreams/hallucinations caused by sorrowful or disturbing memories, the gallery Shattered Dreams and Hopeless Desires demonstrates the devastation and helplessness people experience when stark reality threatens their hopes and dreams. Both galleries relate to the notion of “ dreams” and convey upsetting senses of loss, regret, helplessness, loneliness, and depression.

Many artwork displayed in the two galleries interrelate. For example, thematically, the symphony March To The Scaffold and the painting The Praying Hands are very similar. Both works displays a hope – a dream – impossible to fulfill; in March To The Scaffold Berlioz grieves for unappreciated love and in The Praying Hands Dürer laments his brother’s disfigured hands that forever denied him the dream of painting. Although the two artists express their sorrow for unreachable hopes in different ways – Berlioz desperately and Dürer delicately, both convey similar emotions of grief, helplessness, and regret. Indeed, the themes of the two galleries relate so closely that both featured the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. Both galleries relate this painting to their themes due to Munch’s expression of his inner fear, anguish, and hopelessness as a result of his mental illness and devastating childhood, which both connects to “hopeless desires” and “painful memories”.

Also Interesting...

Another interesting outside link to my blog is Aman’s blog The Unknown.

Although the names of the two blogs suggest disparate themes – one about dreams and the other about exploring the unknown – the two art galleries, in fact, closely relate to each other. Indeed, the gallery Dark Dreams: Painful Memories explores the unknown in many ways and the gallery The Unknown displays dreamlike renditions of the obscurities of both past and future. For example, the unique style and background The Scream in my gallery cast a mysterious air on the painting and The Amazement of the Gods in Aman’s gallery portrays a dreamlike scene of a mythical past.

There is a particularly strong concurrence of the presentation of the past – both memories and imaginary scenes of a time long gone. For example, the Gas Pillars In The Eagle Nebula in the gallery The Unknown portrays a magnificent natural phenomenon that a supernova sadly destroyed nearly sixty thousand years ago. While this picture expresses the intriguing nature of an unknown past, it is also a lamentation for the glory and beauty of natural wonder that no longer exist. This is similar to the painting A Thousand Li Of Rivers And Mountains on my gallery in the way that they both lament past magnificence. Caspar David Friedrich’s painting The Abbey In Oakwood also connects to this mourning of the past; further, it connects to both galleries by its link to a dreamlike depiction of a funeral procession and its ominous hint of the unknown. Indeed, this painting is present in both galleries, further relating the two galleries with each other.