The Scream

Mention the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch and people who know pictures immediately think of that curious work of his from 1893, The Scream. That has always been its popular title. But I don't think he named it that himself. Here it is. Or at least the most-seen of its several versions.

It depicts a waterside scene with an unnaturally blood-red sky, two mysterious figures on a bridge - or a pier - and an odd figure in the foreground, which could be a man or a woman, apparently wailing or screaming in despair. The figure is certainly very unhappy. 

Is it a commentary on desperate loneliness - the single person versus the couple? Or the futility of human existence? Or the state of mind of someone on the point of suicide?

I used to think the picture showed a man seized with fright and fear, knowing that he is about to be arrested by two secret policemen coming towards him. And yet the two figures further along the bridge or pier could be an ordinary man and an ordinary woman, and they could in fact be walking away. 

I keep on saying picture, for this isn't a proper painting. It's oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard. I don't know why Munch chose such an impermanent base for something so obviously important. It might easily not have survived the last 130 years or so. But it has. And throughout that time it has been celebrated as a masterly work, even though the meaning of this picture has remained a matter for debate. 

So there I was, one week ago, at five o'clock on a Thursday afternoon on the pier at Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, the sun having set, and just the afterglow left. I was watching the ferry to Lymington leave. I was booked on the next boat, at seven o'clock, and was killing time. In a short while I'd be looking for an early-evening meal, but for now I was taking photos in the semi-darkness with Lili. The lights on the water, the lit-up ferry boat, the brooding sky, and the tail end of the sunset, all made for a good picture.  

I'd discovered that Lili - my Leica X-U - was a very good camera for dim interiors and after-dark walkabouts. In fact, the best I've ever owned. Later on she took some very good shots of sparsely-lit Yarmouth streets and alleyways, such as these:

But for now I was on the pier. It stretched away from me into the night. There were some lamps, but not enough to make it well-lit. I didn't fancy walking down to the end, where there was a shelter. 

It wasn't eerie, or scary, but the scene nevertheless put me in mind of Munch's The Scream. Hmm...could I do a re-creation? My own version? 

Well, that had definite potential. But I had to do more than just gape, and show off a few fillings and a couple of crowns. What if I put my free hand to my face? (It could only be one hand, as the other was of course holding Lili)

Ah, now much more like it! I still wouldn't claim that my scream and the original are indistinguishable - the bobble-hat is missing from Munch's picture (he missed a trick there) - but I think it passes muster, don't you? 

A pity I couldn't have some menacing figures in my photo, but hey. 

Actually, had I waited, I would have. An elderly lady in a wheelchair, assisted by what I took to be her grown-up son and daughter, had been watching the departure of the ferry from that shelter at the end of the pier, and emerged once the show was over, making their way slowly towards me. While still at a distance, they would have made a nice little posse of out-of-focus secret policemen in the background of my photo. Then again, would I really have had the nerve to turn them into props for my little charade? They might well have guessed what I was trying to do, and become annoyed, and chase me around Yarmouth.  

I might however try another re-staging of a famous painting when opportunity occurs. Which, now?