This discovery will make art lovers scream again.
Edvard Munch’s “Scream” – an expressionist painting from 1893 so famous that it has its own emoji – contains a disturbing hidden message that art historians have now established was written by the artist himself.
The pencil inscription says, “It can only be painted by a madman,” the infrared scans showed.
And although historians have long known about the expression, small and hidden among the distorted brush strokes that make up the screaming figure, there has been some speculation that it was graffitied by an observer, not the Norwegian artist.
But this mystery can now be put to bed, said Mai Britt Guleng, curator of the old masters and modern paintings at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway, which owns the painting.
Guleng and her staff made the discovery after comparing the handwriting in the inscription with the Norwegian artist’s diaries and letters.
“The writing is undoubtedly Munch’s,” she told the BBC. “The handwriting itself, as well as the events that took place in 1895, when Munch first showed painting in Norway, all point in the same direction.”
The mysterious origins of the phrase help to complete a sad picture: Munch created the painting, which has now become a universal symbol for deadly anxiety, even after his sister Laura was employed in an asylum with bipolar disorder.
Although the screaming figure does not look like him, it is believed to be influenced by his own experience of observing a blood red sky after being abandoned by two comrades, seen in the background. At that moment, he was struck by a “burst of melancholy”, according to his diary.
After Munch revealed the painting, the reactions focused on his own mental health, rather than the painting itself.
Experts said it made sense for Munch to write the inscription “crazy” after struggling with numerous critical reviews since then. In 1908, he suffered a mental breakdown.
“It’s a combination of being ironic, but also showing your vulnerability,” Guleng told The Guardian. “In fact, he takes this very seriously and is hurt, because there is a history of illness in his family and he was very anxious, but he was marked by it.”