It’s the art world’s most chilling painting – an emblem of horror that’s inspired films and Halloween costumes the world over, and has even been turned into an emoji. Edvard Munch’s The Scream is easily his most famous work, though in fact it is part of a series of four pieces made between 1893 and 1910 in paint and pastels. With hands clasped around its angst-ridden face, the haunting figure is thought to be standing on a road overlooking Oslo, the Oslofjord and Hovedøya, from the hill of Ekeberg. Munch’s sister Laura Catherine was residing in the mental hospital at the foot of Ekeberg at the time of painting.

On the frame of the 1895 version is a poem by Munch, in which he speaks of walking with two friends and pausing when he noticed the sky had turned blood red. ‘There was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety.’ The figure in the work isn’t actually screaming – the shriek, he says, came from the surroundings. ‘I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.’ If the natural world could emit a collective scream today, imagine the din it would make.

Versions of The Scream can be seen at Oslo’s National Gallery and Munch Museum.

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