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THE SCREAM

The Scream appears in a freshly sawn plank

“I felt as though a vast, endless scream passed through nature,” wrote Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. This week it passed through again, appearing in a freshly sawn plank.

The Scream appears in a freshly sawn plank
The Scream appeared in a piece of wood Erling Vindfjell brought in for the fire. Photo: Gunn Helga Vindfjell
Erling Vindfjell was sawing planks for a house he is building near Seljord, three hours west of Oslo, when he spotted the mysterious apparition. 
 
“He was making planks on a saw and there it was,” his daughter in law Gunn Helga Vindfjell told The Local. “He called my husband and said 'don’t throw it away!'. They were both working and they were making a fire to warm themselves.” 
 
The family has since named the accidental artwork “The Scream in the Forest” and are aiming to conserve it for posterity. 
 
“We want to keep it somewhere where no one can get hold of it. It must surely be treated as an art object,” Vindfjell told Norway's VG newspaper, which first recorded her discovery.  
 
She told The Local that she did not believe there was any cosmic significance to the find. 
 
“I’m not superstitious, so I don’t think there’s anything strange about it,” she said. “But I expect that some people will think that.” 
 
Only last year, the iconic artwork appeared in a tree stump

OSLO

Munch wrote ‘madman’ tag on ‘Scream’ painting, museum rules

A mysterious inscription on Edvard Munch's famed painting "The Scream" has baffled the art world for years, but Norwegian experts have now concluded it was written by none other than the artist himself.

Munch wrote 'madman' tag on 'Scream' painting, museum rules
File photo: AFP

Barely visible to the naked eye, the phrase “Can only have been painted by a madman” is written in pencil in Norwegian in the upper left corner of the iconic artwork.

The dark painting from 1893, now a symbol of existential angst, depicts a humanlike figure standing on a bridge, clutching its head in apparent horror against the backdrop of a swirling sky.

The author of the phrase has long been a mystery, with the main theory until now holding that it was a disgruntled viewer who penned it at the beginning of the 20th century on one of the four versions made by Munch.

But, using infrared technology to analyse the handwriting, experts at Norway’s National Museum have now concluded that it was the artist himself. 

“The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own,” museum curator Mai Britt Guleng said in a statement.

“The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction.”

The first showing of the work to the public in Oslo — then known as Kristiania — provoked furious criticism and raised questions about Munch’s mental state, which, according to Guleng, likely prompted Munch to write the inscription on the canvas shortly afterwards.

A pioneer of expressionism, Munch was haunted by the premature deaths of several family members, including his mother and his sister Johanne Sophie, due to illness. In 1908, he was temporarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.

This version of “The Scream” was stolen in 1994, the opening day of the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer. It was recovered several months later.

The masterpiece will again go on display when the National Museum reopens in a new building in 2022.

READ ALSO: ‘The Scream’: newly-released Munch originals reveal different look

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