Green is often a color associated with growth, freshness, and fertility. Sometimes it is also a depressing color. Van Gogh often painted scenes painted green to represent the terrible sadness of loneliness. The Night CafeFor example, the ceiling and central pool table feature green. Most of the figures feel disconnected, many of them slumped over their tables. Even the man who stands upright does so on his own, his white clothes in stark contrast to the rest of the patrons.
a similar concept prevails the Scream, Here too, the green represents the hopeless loneliness the figure is dealing with. The blue color of the sea represents nostalgia. The burning red of the sky is the terror of the screaming figure.
Munch himself said as much. On one of the paintings he had inscribed:
“I was walking on the road with two friends. the sun was setting –
the sky turned blood red
And I felt a twinge of sadness – I stood
Still, mortally tired – over the blue-black
Fjord and City Hung Blood and Tongues of Fire
my friends keep going – i’m left behind
– Trembling with anxiety – I felt the great scream in nature”
chew painted the Scream At a time when he was battling mental illness. The painting is an expression of those troubled days. In the silent cry of this painting, the concern of that time finds its voice.
Many of us at some point in our lives have found ourselves caught up in an evening where the sky was covered with vermilion and our hearts suddenly filled with sadness. You might have felt a sudden existential panic on a normal walk or felt excruciatingly lonely even among friends. Perhaps you too have felt that cry within you that you suppressed and kept hidden from the world. Munch felt the same way, but instead of speaking his experience out loud, he expressed his mental state on canvas for us to see.
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