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The Scream is the popular name given to a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Close Settings. When he painted The Scream in 1893, Munch was inspired by “a gust of melancholy,” as he declared in his diary. It’s because of this, coupled with the artist’s personal life trauma, that the painting takes on a feeling of alienation, of the abnormal The Scream represents a key work for the Symbolist movement as well as an important inspiration for the Expressionist movement of the early twentieth century.
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Symbolist artists of diverse international backgrounds confronted questions regarding the nature of subjectivity and its visual depiction.
Inspired by a hallucinatory experience in which Munch felt and heard a “scream throughout nature,” it depicts a panic-stricken creature, simultaneously corpselike and reminiscent of a sperm or fetus, whose contours are echoed in the swirling lines of the blood-red sky.
This amazing works of art, sold for $120 million at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, setting a new record as the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction.
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Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art auction featured top works by Picasso, Dali and Miro, but Munch’s vibrant work from 1895 was the star attraction in a salesroom packed with art collectors, dealers and media.
The vibrant pastel was conservatively estimated to sell for about $80 million, but two determined bidders competing via telephone emerged from an initial group of seven, driving the final price to $107 million, or $119,922,500 including commission, over the course of a nearly 15-minute bidding war.
The winning bid was taken by a Sotheby’s executive, and the bidder was not identified.
One of four versions by the Scandinavian painter, sold by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, “The Scream” easily eclipsed the old auction record held by Picasso’s “Nude, green leaves and bust,” which sold for $106.5 million at Christie’s two years ago.
