The Scream: Nobody in the Picture Is Screaming (and Munch Wrote the 'Madman' Graffiti)

Short answer (updated 28 Oct 2026, pass 5): In Munch's own words, the scream is not coming from the figure. It is "an infinite scream passing through nature," and the figure on the road is hearing it. The picture we print is the 1893 version in Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00939): tempera and crayon on cardboard, 91 × 73.5 cm. It is the first painted version, not the only one. And the tiny pencil line in the sky, "Can only be painted by a madman!", was written by Munch himself. (Nasjonalmuseet)

The fact gap: the most famous scream nobody in the picture is making

Munch's own note, in his words

When and where it was written. The walk itself probably took place in 1891, at sunset over the Oslo fjord (Munch Museum). Munch wrote the experience down in his diary in Nice on 22 January 1892 (Moderna Museet; Store norske leksikon), then reworked it many times. One version survives as MM T 2367, a note dated 1892 with a drawing and a draft of the text (eMunch.no catalogue: "Datert 1892. Notat"). The shorter line on the lithograph is a condensed extract of the Nice text. (Store norske leksikon)

It is held by the Munch Museum and transcribed on eMunch.no. The English edition's translation reads:

My friends walked on and I stayed behind quaking with angst – and I felt as though a vast endless scream passed through nature

Munch's Norwegian is "et stort uendelig skrik gennem naturen": a great, endless scream through nature. (eMunch.no, MM T 2367; Munch Museum)

Four details worth looking at

1. The upper-left sky. The pencil inscription sits in the red clouds. Under a microscope the pencil lies on top of the paint, and an infrared photo makes it legible; see the museum's infrared image. You have to get very close; curator Mai Britt Guleng told the New York Times that vandalism would have been written larger. (NYT, 2021)
2. The two men on the left. They are the "two friends" from Munch's poem, walking on while he stops at the fence. (Nasjonalmuseet)
3. Two signatures, one on top of the other. The museum notes the board is signed twice, with one signature over the other, at lower left: "E. Munch 1893." (Nasjonalmuseet)

   

4. The face. In the 1892 forerunner, Sick Mood at Sunset. Despair, the main figure is a clear man in hat and coat. Here he became a hairless, skull-like presence. Munch also turned him to face us front on, which the museum calls the change that makes the image "confrontational." (Nasjonalmuseet)

Context

• The view is the Kristiania (Oslo) fjord seen from Ekeberg hill. (Nasjonalmuseet)
• Munch had already painted Despair in 1892 with the same colours, format and landscape; The Scream changed the figure. (Nasjonalmuseet)
• Norway first saw it in October 1895, at Blomqvist in Kristiania. A critic, Henrik Grosch, wrote that one could no longer "consider Munch a serious man with a normal brain." At a Student Society debate, medical student Johan Scharffenberg questioned Munch's mental state. Curator Mai Britt Guleng's theory is that Munch wrote the "madman" line in or soon after 1895, in response. (Nasjonalmuseet)
• Munch made all his Scream versions on cardboard or paper. Light breaks them down, so the National Museum keeps Room 060 dim, and the Munch Museum rotates its painting, drawing and print, showing one at a time. (Nasjonalmuseet; Munch Museum)
• Munch kept writing the text too. He attached a short version to the front of the frame of a pastel he sold, the lithograph was printed with a short German quote (often trimmed off), and he published the full text in 1928. (Munch Museum)
• The museum calls it a turning point from symbolism to the expressionism of the 1900s. (Nasjonalmuseet)
• The first book on Munch, edited by Stanisław Przybyszewski in 1894, is where the picture is first discussed in print. He read it as part of a "Love Series," which is not how it is understood today. (Nasjonalmuseet catalogue)
• The National Gallery wanted it as early as 1901. That October, the painter Gerhard Munthe wrote to Munch asking what he wanted for "The Scream." Munch didn't sell then. He promised not to take it abroad, but still showed it in Berlin, Leipzig, Copenhagen and Prague between 1901 and 1910. (Nasjonalmuseet; Munch Museum letter MM K 720)
• The signed 1895 pastel has a small panel on the lower frame with a version of the prose poem written on it. (Nasjonalmuseet catalogue)
• Olaf Schou bought it in 1910 and gave it to the National Gallery the same year. It was stolen in 1994 and returned that year; it was last lent abroad in 1993. (Nasjonalmuseet)
• Today it hangs in Room 060 of the National Museum in Oslo. (Nasjonalmuseet, checked 27 Oct 2026)

Which print

Our print is the 1893 Nasjonalmuseet painting (NG.M.00939): the red-and-orange sky, blue fjord and cardboard showing through. It is not the Munch Museum's later painted version, the pastels, or the lithograph. Munch died in 1944, so the painting is public domain; the photograph is by Børre Høstland for Nasjonalmuseet, shared under CC BY 4.0. The museum doesn't supply or endorse our prints. 4:5 portrait, a hair trimmed from each side. → Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893) fine art print

Also from the dossier shelf:

• The Starry Night: another swirling sky with a story people get wrong.
• The Great Wave: one image, many versions, and which one we print.
• Girl with a Pearl Earring: another famous face that belongs to no one.

FAQ

Where is The Scream? The 1893 painting is in the National Museum (Nasjonalmuseet), Oslo, inventory NG.M.00939. The Munch Museum in Oslo holds the later painted version and other versions.

Is the figure screaming? Munch described a scream passing through nature, and the figure has its hands at its head. The Munch Museum says the question is open: screaming, or reacting to a scream.

When did the experience happen? Probably on an evening walk in 1891 (Munch Museum). He wrote it down in Nice on 22 January 1892. (Moderna Museet)

How many versions does the Munch Museum have? Eight finished ones: one painting (tempera and oil on cardboard, probably 1910), one crayon drawing (1893) and six lithographs, one hand-coloured by Munch. They are shown in rotation, one at a time, because cardboard and paper are light-sensitive. (Munch Museum)

How big is it? 91 × 73.5 cm (about 35¾ × 29 in).

Who wrote "Can only be painted by a madman"? Munch. Infrared imaging and handwriting analysis confirmed it.

Where is the scene? The road on Ekeberg hill above the Oslofjord.

Is the image public domain? Yes. The painting is public domain; the museum photograph is CC BY 4.0 and credited. No museum endorses this shop.

Sources

• Nasjonalmuseet: The Scream, 1893, NG.M.00939 (catalogue text, versions, technique, provenance)
• Nasjonalmuseet: "Could only have been painted by a madman!" (infrared study of the inscription)
• eMunch.no (Munch Museum): MM T 2367, "The Scream" literary sketch, 1892, English translation
• eMunch.no: MM T 2367, original Norwegian transcription
• Munch Museum (MUNCH): The Scream, versions in the collection
• Munch Museum: 5 things you should know about The Scream
• Munch Museum: Where can I see The Scream? (rotation, light)
• Nasjonalmuseet audio guide, Room 060: The Scream
• Moderna Museet, Stockholm: "Jag kände det stora skriet genom naturen" (Nice diary, 22 Jan 1892; Despair first shown 1892)
• Store norske leksikon: Skrik (maleri) (Nice text, 22 Jan 1892; lithograph text as extract)
• eMunch.no: MM T 2367 catalogue entry (dated 1892, note with drawing)
• Nasjonalmuseet press release (22 Feb 2021): infrared scans reveal author of the inscription; curator Mai Britt Guleng
• The New York Times (21 Feb 2021): Who Wrote on Edvard Munch's "The Scream"? (press coverage)
• Nasjonalmuseet: About copyright (collection photos licensed CC BY; signature detail photo by Børre Høstland)
• Wikimedia Commons: The Scream, 1893 (image file only; its title's "oil" is not in the museum record, so use the museum for medium)

Quotations are short and attributed. Everything else is paraphrased.