The message “Could only have been painted by a madman”, scribbled and barely visible in the top left corner of the painting, has been debated for decades and was widely regarded as an act of vandalism by a viewer of the play.
The painting was hung in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2015. Due to damage, it has rarely been exhibited in recent years. Credit: BAS CZERWINSKI / AFP / AFP / Getty Images
But extensive research by the National Museum of Norway has shown that Munch wrote the sentence himself.
The Expressionist masterpiece is one of the most celebrated works of the modern era, heralded as a timeless representation of human fear. The person’s haunted face has become so familiar that it recently got its own emoji.
Curators used infrared technology to analyze the message added on top of the finished painting, comparing it with Munch’s notes and letters, and studying the events surrounding the time of the work’s first public display.
“The writing is without doubt Munch’s,” concluded Mai Britt Guleng, the museum’s curator. “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.”
After the initial public disclosure, some critics rejected the nerve-racking painting and a frenzied discussion about Munch’s mental state ensued, giving credibility to the idea that an outraged third party scribbled their own scathing review on the work itself.
But curators said the reaction was likely the reason Munch made the addition, with the artist upset about the critical reaction to the painting when he first showed it in his hometown Kristiania (now Oslo).
“During a discussion evening at the student association, where Munch is said to have attended, the young medical student Johan Scharffenberg questioned Munch’s mental health and claimed that his paintings proved that he was not sane.” said the museum. “It is likely that Munch added the inscription in 1895, or shortly afterwards in response to the judgment of his work.”
They added that Munch was hurt by the accusation, referencing it again in his own diary entries.
“The Scream” is said to have been inspired by a walk Munch took through town while in a state of mental and physical turmoil.