The very first of the five versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream, currently in the Norwegian National Museum, features a small inscription in Norwegian. Housed in the upper left corner, almost imperceptible in the shimmering sheet of sky that unfolds in the background, the phrase "Can only have been painted by a madman!" was added in pencil a few years after the canvas was created.
While experts had first hypothesised an act of vandalism, perhaps written by an indignant spectator at the turn of the 20th century, an infrared analysis has just revealed that the author of the sentence was none other than Munch himself.
The techniques of infrared technology and graphological analysis have enabled experts to carefully examine the inscription, word by word then letter by letter, to compare it with other known writings of the painter (in particular his letters and his notebooks). "There is no doubt that the inscription is Munch's," said curator Mai Britt Guleng in a statement released by the museum on Monday. "The writing and the events that followed when Munch first showed the painting in Norway point in the same direction."
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This version of The Scream was first exhibited in Norway in October 1895, drawing harsh criticism from the public. After seeing the exhibition, art critic Henrik Grosch wrote that it was no longer possible to "consider Munch a serious man with a normal brain." The bad reception of the work not only affected the mental health of the painter but may also have, according to recent discoveries, pushed him to scribble the derogatory inscription on the canvas.
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Munch, like his father and sister, had fragile mental health and was placed in a mental institution in 1908 following a nervous breakdown. The Norwegian painter, who grappled with the anguish inherent in humanity in his art, may have echoed the words of the critic or confessed his own psychological distress in the inscription.
"By writing this inscription in the clouds, he took possession, in a way, or he took control of how he was to be perceived and understood," said Mai Britt Guleng. “We will never stop researching Edvard Munch and his works of art. Every time we ask ourselves new questions, new answers and new perspectives emerge."
This version of the work was stolen in 1994, the day of the opening of the Lillehammer Olympic Winter Games, before it was found a few months later. It will be exhibited again in 2022, during the planned opening of the National Museum of Norway, which will bring together the collections of several museums.
