The Scream by Edvard Munch, Vintage Expressionism Coaster

The Scream aka Skrik (1893) by Edvard Munch is a vintage expressionism fine art painting. The Scream is Munch's most famous work and one of the world's most recognizable paintings in art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Painted with broad bands of garish colour and highly simplified forms, and employing a high viewpoint, the agonized figure is reduced to a garbed skull in the throes of an emotional crisis. With this painting, Munch met his stated goal of “the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self”. Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature." About the artist: Edward Munch (1863-1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, print maker and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.