The Scream, 1893
Edvard Munch
91 x 73.5 cm
A figure's silent howl bends the sky and bridge into rippling colour.
A figure claps its hands to its head and screams beneath a blood-orange sky, the whole world rippling in sympathy. Munch's 1893 image of pure modern anxiety has become one of the most recognised — and most quoted — pictures ever made.
What you're looking at
It is painted on cardboard rather than canvas, in a mix of tempera, oil and pastel, and Munch left patches of the board bare — at 4K the brown shows straight through the sky. Two figures walk on the bridge behind, entirely untroubled, and it is their indifference that makes the foreground figure's isolation land. The bridge is a road above the Oslofjord. In the top left corner, in pencil, is a line the Nasjonalmuseet confirmed in 2021 to be Munch's own hand: it could only have been painted by a madman.
On a Frame TV
Portrait, about 4:5. The sky is half the picture and the clean 16:9 crop cannot keep both it and the figure, so take the matted file. Contrast is extreme — orange against blue-black — which means it survives a bright room, but it is a loud picture and will dominate whatever else is in view.
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design · Visit it in Oslo →
- 4K master file (3840px+)
- Samsung Frame TV–ready crop
- Phone wallpaper crop
- Printable art card
Public domain · one .zip, no sign-up
In The Scream, the figure is not screaming — nature is →
More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Edvard Munch.
