This finding will make art lovers scream again.
Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” – an 1893 expressionist painting so famous it has its own emoji – contains a disturbing hidden message that art historians have now determined was written by the artist himself.
The pencil inscription reads, “Could only have been painted by a madman,” infrared scans have shown.
And while historians have long been aware of the phrase, tiny and hidden among the distorted brushstrokes that make up the weeping figure, there has been some speculation that it was engraved by an observer, not the Norwegian artist.
But that mystery can now be put to bed, said Mai Britt Guleng, curator of old masters and modern paintings at the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, which owns the painting.
Guleng and her staff made the groundbreaking discovery by comparing the handwriting in the inscription with the diaries and letters of the Norwegian artist.
“The writing is without a doubt Munch’s,” she told the BBC. “The manuscript itself, as well as the events that took place in 1895 when Munch first showed the painting in Norway, all point in the same direction.”
The mysterious origins of the phrase help complete a sad picture: Munch created the painting, which has now become a universal symbol of agony just after his sister Laura was admitted to an asylum with bipolar disorder.
While the screaming figure does not resemble him, it is believed to be influenced by his own experience observing a blood-red sky after being left by two companions, seen in the background. At that moment, according to his diary, he was struck by a “fit of melancholy.”
After Munch revealed the painting, the reactions focused on his own mental health, rather than the painting itself.
The experts said it makes sense that Munch wrote the ‘crazy’ inscription after struggling with the many critical reviews of the time. In 1908 he had a nervous breakdown.
“It’s a combination of being ironic, but also showing his vulnerability,” Guleng told The Guardian. “He actually takes this very seriously and he’s hurt because there is a history of illness in his family, and he was very worried, but he showed himself marked by it.”