Art Mystery Solved: Who Wrote on Edvard Munchâs âThe Screamâ?
The authorship of the tiny inscription, âCould only have been painted by a madman,â was disputed. Curators in Oslo say the artist definitely wrote it himself. (But why?)
Edvard Munchâs âThe Scream.âCredit.National Museum of Norway
By Nina Siegal
Feb. 21, 2021
Edvard Munchâs âThe Scream,â from 1893, is one of the worldâs most famous paintings, but for years art historians have mostly ignored a tiny inscription, written in pencil, at the upper left corner of its frame, reading: âCould only have been painted by a madman.â
Who wrote the sentence there? Some thought a disgruntled viewer might have vandalized the work while it was in a gallery; others imagined it was the artist himself who had jotted the enigmatic sentence. But then why?
BBC News
Published
image copyrightNational Museum of Norway
image captionThe famous 1893 painting will be displayed in the new National Museum of Norway from 2022
Artist Edvard Munch wrote mysterious graffiti on his painting of The Scream, infrared scans have shown.
A small and barely visible sentence written on one of the world s most well-known paintings has been the cause of much conjecture in the art world.
The words, Can only have been painted by a madman , are inscribed in pencil in the top left-hand corner.
Now, new tests made by The National Museum of Norway have confirmed they were made by the man himself.
For a century the graffiti was thought to have been the scream of a critic offended by the “abnormality” of Edvard Munch’s art.A conservation project on The Scream has, however, confirmed that Munch
arts
Published 22nd February 2021 Painted by a madman : Edvard Munch wrote a hidden message on The Scream
A tiny message hidden in Edvard Munch s famous painting The Scream was written by the artist himself, a new investigation of the work has found, finally resolving one of modern art s most enduring mysteries.
The message Can only have been painted by a madman, scrawled and barely visible in the top left-hand corner of the painting, has been the subject of debate for decades and was widely believed to have been an act of vandalism by a viewer of the piece.
The painting being hung at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2015. It has rarely been exhibited in recent years due to damage. Credit: BAS CZERWINSKI/AFP/AFP/Getty Images