Taking on Acrylics Pt. 2

The Scream

By Edvard Munch, 1893

What must be done to escape proselytizing art and its scholars? Rather, can anything sway mass exuberance? Perhaps not, but a more hopeful answer is not yet. If ‘yet’ is ever to come about, though, people should be ready to shout ‘bull’ where and when they see it. Munch’s seemingly indomitable titan has been asking for scrutiny with its long-standing and winded shriek.

A sort of collective self-portrait, The Scream or Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) as Munch originally called it is astounding in its celebrity. Even more so is the number of prints produced in the actual ‘Scream’ series – as if an Expressionist vision is something best regimented into acceptability.

The work comes from Munch’s own experience – a mixture of ex/internal elements. But as the beholden representative of something as “enormous” and “infinite” as universal anguish, the painting’s simplistic, near puritanical execution lends itself poorly. One might even expect that the artist’s brooding emotional issues should have yielded more than broad strokes in the likeness of a red-orange sky and an Alopecia sufferer in an undulating shroud. The howling figure in question even seems distracted – apparently not fretful enough to check out whatever’s off to the side. This lack of connection numbs Munch’s intended meaning.

The same as any other artwork that has been chosen and ushered into the annals of history by few and sheepishly commended by many, The Scream requires a double-take. Art needs always to support divergent thought, not homogenous acquiesce.