The Scream: The Story Behind Edvard Munch's Haunting Masterpiece

A figure with a skull-like face clutches its head on a bridge. Behind it, the sky bleeds into swirls of orange and red. You've seen it on posters, mugs and phone screens, and even as the 😱 emoji. Edvard Munch's The Scream may be the most recognisable image of anxiety ever painted.

But how much do you actually know about it? The story behind the painting is stranger than most people realise. It involves a sunset walk, two daring thefts, a mysterious handwritten insult and four different versions of the same scream.

Who Was Edvard Munch?

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was a Norwegian painter whose childhood was shaped by loss. His mother died when he was five, and his beloved older sister Sophie died when he was a teenager. Illness and grief followed him throughout his life, and he later said that fear and sickness had stood guard by his cradle.

Rather than painting what the world looked like, Munch painted what it felt like. Love, jealousy, loneliness and dread became his subjects. This made him one of the founding figures of Expressionism, the movement that put raw emotion ahead of realistic detail.

The Sunset That Started It All

Munch described the moment that inspired The Scream in his own writing. He was walking along a road above the city of Kristiania (now Oslo) with two friends as the sun went down. Suddenly the sky turned blood red. He stopped, exhausted, and leaned on a railing while his friends walked on. Trembling with anxiety, he sensed what he called an endless scream passing through nature.

That's the detail most people miss: the figure isn't screaming. It's covering its ears against a scream coming from the world around it. Munch's original German title for the work was Der Schrei der Natur, "The Scream of Nature".

The spot he described is generally identified as Ekeberg hill, looking out over the Oslofjord. The view still exists today, and visitors make the pilgrimage to stand where Munch stood.

Why Was the Sky Red?

Art historians and scientists have debated that blood-red sky for decades. Some suggest Munch was remembering the vivid sunsets seen across Europe after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, when volcanic ash coloured skies for months. Others point to "mother-of-pearl" clouds, a rare phenomenon in Scandinavian skies. And many believe the sky simply reflects Munch's inner state, a world seen through panic.

The truth may be all three. That ambiguity is part of why the painting still grips us.

Not One Scream, but Four

There isn't a single Scream. Munch returned to the image again and again:

• 1893, crayon on cardboard: thought to be the first full version, held by the Munch Museum in Oslo
• 1893, tempera and crayon on cardboard: the most famous version, held by the National Museum of Norway
• 1895, pastel: the only version in private hands. It sold at Sotheby's in 2012 for almost US$120 million, then a record for any artwork at auction.
• 1910, tempera: a later painted version, also at the Munch Museum

Munch also made a lithograph in 1895, which allowed the image to be printed and spread far beyond the gallery walls.

Stolen, Twice

For a painting about dread, The Scream has had a dramatic life.

In February 1994, on the day the Winter Olympics opened in Lillehammer, thieves propped a ladder against the National Gallery in Oslo. They climbed through a window and walked off with the 1893 painting in under a minute. They left behind a cheeky note thanking the gallery for its poor security. The painting was recovered undamaged a few months later.

Ten years later, in 2004, armed men walked into the Munch Museum in broad daylight. They took the 1910 version along with Munch's Madonna. Both paintings were found two years later, but The Scream had suffered moisture damage in one corner that could never be fully repaired.

"Could Only Have Been Painted by a Madman"

Look closely at the 1893 painted version and you'll find a faint pencil inscription in the red sky. In Norwegian, it says the picture could only have been painted by a madman. For years, experts assumed a vandal had written it.

In 2021, the National Museum of Norway compared the handwriting to Munch's letters and diaries and concluded that Munch wrote it himself. He was likely responding to critics who questioned his sanity after the painting was first shown. It's a rare glimpse of an artist talking back to his reviewers, on the canvas itself.

From Masterpiece to Meme

Few paintings have had a pop-culture afterlife like this one. The figure's face has been borrowed by horror films, cartoons and advertising. It turns up in countless memes, and many people see it in the 😱 emoji. Andy Warhol made screen prints of it. It has become shorthand for every modern worry, from exam stress to the Monday commute.

Perhaps that's the real secret of its success. More than a century later, we still recognise that feeling.

Stitching The Scream

Munch's swirling lines and bold blocks of colour translate beautifully into thread. The rippling sky is especially satisfying to watch emerge stitch by stitch. If you've enjoyed stitching other famous works, like The Starry Night with its similarly swirling sky, The Scream makes a natural next project. With Halloween around the corner, there's no better time.

Curious about turning paintings into needlework? Read why fine art is becoming cross stitch's most beautiful trend.

More From Edvard Munch

The Scream wasn't Munch's only take on that fateful view. Anxiety (1894) is set on the same road under the same burning sky, this time with a crowd of pale, staring faces. For a brighter side of the artist, The Sun shows a blazing sunrise over the Norwegian coast. It's a world away from the dread of his earlier work.

Explore the full Edvard Munch Cross Stitch Collection, or get in the spooky-season mood with our Halloween Cross Stitch collection.