You know the image. Even if you’ve never stepped foot in a museum or opened an art history textbook, you’ve seen it. That wide-eyed, hairless figure standing on a bridge, hands pressed against its face in a perfect oval of pure, unadulterated panic. Most people call it the yelling man painting, but its real name is The Scream (or Der Schrei der Natur in German).
It’s become the universal emoji for "I’m losing my mind." But here’s the thing: most of us have the story totally wrong.
It’s not actually a man yelling
Seriously.
If you look closely at Edvard Munch’s masterpiece, the central figure isn't actually screaming. He’s reacting. Munch wrote about the inspiration for this piece in his diary back in 1892, describing a walk he took at sunset near a fjord in Norway. He watched the sky turn "blood red" and felt a "great, infinite scream pass through nature."
The figure in the painting is actually covering its ears to block out the sound of the world around it. It’s an internal reaction to an external sensation. That subtle shift in perspective—from an active shout to a passive, terrified reception of noise—changes everything about how we view the work. It’s not about making noise; it’s about the noise of existence being too much to handle.
Munch wasn't just some guy trying to be edgy. He was deeply troubled. His life was a revolving door of tragedy. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five. His sister Sophie died of the same disease a few years later. His father was obsessively religious and prone to bouts of terrifying anger. Honestly, it’s no wonder the guy saw the sky turning into blood. He was processing a level of trauma that most of us can’t even fathom.
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The many versions of the "Yelling Man"
A lot of people think there’s just one Scream. There aren't. Munch actually created four different versions of this composition between 1833 and 1910. He was obsessed. He kept returning to this specific feeling of dread, trying to capture it in different mediums.
- The most famous one—the 1893 tempera and pastel on board—lives at the National Museum in Oslo.
- There’s a pastel version from the same year.
- Another pastel from 1895 (which sold for nearly $120 million at Sotheby’s in 2012).
- A final tempera version painted in 1910.
He also made a lithograph stone so he could print black-and-white versions for the masses. This is why the image spread so fast. He wasn't precious about it. He wanted people to feel what he felt.
The 1910 version is actually the one that got stolen. Twice. In 1994, thieves broke into the National Gallery in Oslo and left a note that basically said, "Thanks for the poor security." It was recovered a few months later. Then, in 2004, masked gunmen walked into the Munch Museum and took another version in broad daylight. People were stunned. How do you just walk out with one of the most famous paintings in history? It took two years to get that one back, and it was damaged by moisture. You can still see the spots if you look closely enough.
Why it looks so... weird
The style is Expressionism, but Munch was doing it before it was even a "thing."
He stripped away the details. The face is a skull. The body is a literal curve. The lines of the bridge are sharp and straight, while the sky and water are swirling, chaotic messes. This contrast is intentional. The bridge represents the rigid, cold reality of human construction, while the background is the raw, pulsing energy of nature.
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The colors are jarring. That orange isn't "pretty sunset" orange; it’s "the world is on fire" orange. Munch used cadmium yellow and vermilion in ways that felt aggressive to the viewers of the 1890s. They were used to pretty landscapes and realistic portraits. This? This felt like a slap in the face.
Art critics at the time hated it. One critic even suggested that a "normal" brain couldn't have produced such a work. Munch, in a moment of peak pettiness, actually took a pencil and wrote in tiny letters on the top left corner of the 1893 painting: "Can only have been painted by a madman." For years, people debated if a vandal did it. In 2021, infrared technology confirmed it was Munch’s own handwriting. He leaned into the criticism. He owned it.
The connection to real-world physics
There’s a wild theory that the "blood red" sky wasn't just a hallucination. In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano erupted in Indonesia. It was one of the most violent volcanic events in recorded history. It sent so much ash into the atmosphere that sunsets all over the world—including Norway—turned vivid, terrifying shades of red and orange for months.
Astronomers like Donald Olson have argued that Munch was recording a literal atmospheric phenomenon he saw as a teenager and carried in his memory for a decade. It’s a fascinating bridge between subjective emotion and objective science. Whether it was a panic attack or a volcanic cloud, the result was the same: a feeling that the world was ending.
Why we can't stop looking at it
The "yelling man" has been parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to Wes Craven in the Scream horror franchise. It’s on coffee mugs, t-shirts, and inflatable dolls.
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Why?
Because it’s the most honest depiction of anxiety ever created. We live in a world that is loud, fast, and often overwhelming. Munch captured that specific "I can't take it anymore" feeling better than any photographer or filmmaker ever has. It’s a mirror. When you look at that distorted face, you aren't looking at Edvard Munch; you’re looking at your own stress.
How to actually experience the work
If you want to understand the yelling man painting beyond the memes, you have to look at the context of the Munch Museum in Oslo. They have a massive collection of his work that shows his evolution. You see that The Scream was part of a larger series called The Frieze of Life. It was meant to be seen alongside paintings about love, jealousy, and death.
It wasn't a one-off. It was a chapter in a story about being human.
Practical steps for the art-curious:
- Look for the pencil inscription: If you ever get to Oslo, look at the very top left corner of the 1893 version. It’s tiny, but it’s there—the "madman" comment.
- Compare the mediums: Look at the lithograph (black and white) versus the tempera. The lack of color in the print makes the lines feel much more violent and jagged.
- Read the diary entries: Don't take a critic's word for it. Read Munch’s own words about that walk at Ekeberg Hill. It grounds the "madness" in a very specific, relatable moment of sensory overload.
- Check the condition: Look for the water damage on the 1910 version. It’s a reminder that even the most "priceless" things are fragile.
The painting isn't just a relic of the 1890s. It’s a permanent fixture of the human psyche. We scream, we cover our ears, and we keep walking across the bridge. Munch just happened to be the one who stopped to paint it.