Reading for L&Lers:
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151706441/scream-still-echoes-after-more-than-a-century?sc=fb&cc=fp
Munch captured something real, says Ana Mozol, a Jungian analyst in
Vancouver, British Columbia. She dreamed on the image and found it
deeply disturbing — "Like a dark truth," she says. "In Jungian
psychology we speak of the personal shadow and the collective shadow. I
think in a moment like that, the way I was seeing it, was a seeing
through to the collective shadow."
Why does this work of art appeal to so wide of an audience?
What does this work of art mean to you?
300 word minimum
The artwork appeals to such a wide audience because of many reasons. People want to see themselves in the artwork. They see a person who can represent anyone and needs some help. This person is screaming, and everyone at some point has a problem and wants to just stay in the middle of nowhere and scream. Everyone needs moment of reflecting and letting the emotions free. People find so many connections to this artwork, because it is just the scream we all have somewhere. People might be even jealous that this person in that artwork just feels so free and screams. People are often not brave enough to do so. We all need to scream sometimes, due to different reasons. Sometimes we are afraid and sometimes we just need to express ourselves in some way. Sometimes people just can’t find words that will describe how they feel, so they just simply scream or they dream about opportunity to tell what they feel and why they feel like this.
ReplyDeleteThis artwork means a lot for me. It is not only an interesting piece of art that I can analyze in terms how it is done, but it also shows all emotions. This artwork just shows me that even if people act like they are strong and brave, sometimes all they need to do is to scream. We are often scared and we don’t know what to do any this seems the only and the best solution. For me screaming is something that symbolizes very strong emotions and can be used when people are in a very bad situation. It is not often that we just stand and scream. At the same time this artwork shows me that I shouldn’t feel bad or ashamed because I want to scream or express my emotions. Everyone at some point needs to show what he or she feels like.
This work as for is a real piece of art; there are a lot of aspects that are very interesting. Most of all, I like the technique that Munch is using to create that kind of mood, movement. As well we should pay attention to the colors, the way the artists mixed cold and warm shades. All of the techniques make me think of everyday life. How life is full of different colors and each color has its own shades. The technique of horizontal lines makes me think more like life has different situations, one week may be dark, another half a year I might come across with that small light, warm part of the lake, swimming and having to lead, to command that small but very bright boat.
DeleteIf we look closer to the drawing, we can see that the bridge is brawn with rough and straight lines, when everything around is smooth and wavy. The person screaming in the middle of the picture might represent Munch who cannot stand the straight, correct, usual and exact world. This might be because he knows that outside of that bridge there is a great world, which is different and much more interesting and more complex. It is like in math, it is so easy to write an equation of a straight line, when it is so much harder to come up with the equation of the wavy line, which might seem like not having any pattern.
As for me the point of this artwork was to tell people that they have to think outside the box, outside their comfortable limits. As well we can see that in this art piece we have a strong theme of loneliness and uniqueness. First of all we can see that there are three people on the bridge, but only one is facing us with eyes and it is screaming. When on the background we can see two more man, who are properly dressed and we can clearly tell that they are men. Secondly, we can see the only one ship somewhere far away, as for me it looks like loneliness due to the fact that the lake so huge compared to the size of the ship. As well we can notice that the ship is drawn on the light spot of the lake, would this mean that he is the only one who is enlightened?
Great insight! An interesting concept you have here that we long to be seeing ourselves within the art we are checking out.
DeleteBecause it’s the effect of society. Personally It truly has not much of an effect on me, but because society insists that this piece of art is truly amazing most people eventually accept this fact only because society says it is. Much like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, its an piece of art that seems to be popular because society says it is. But this may be too harsh. Perhaps its own popularity is fueled by societal enjoyment it may have a level of true appeal to the common populace.
ReplyDeleteIt has potential appeal as a sort of representative of psychosis. Many people in the modern world feel heavily repressed, and perhaps feel that scream helps them express their frustrations. Since so many people are repressed then scream appeals to that wide of an audience.
Something as basic and understandable as a piece of art such as this may have more appeal and a wider audience then a very abstract piece that relies on interpretation. This work of art has a simple name, simple meaning, and simple drawing. This simplicity helps it reach a wider range of people.
This work of art for me is nice. It sometimes represents my scream, but its not something that means that much to me personally. I just find it something that’s nice to look at, and is simple but for longer periods of observation it begins to look not as nice. Because its form of drawing doesn’t appeal to me that much. So I find it enjoyable to look at for shorter and not extended periods of time.
I think that this work of art appeals to such wide audience because every single one of us understands what this scream is and what it means. Since this is a painting you don’t hear the scream, but everything on this picture seems to be crying out. Colors, atmosphere you even get this feeling of hopelessness, disturbance and anxiety. As it was said in the article each one of us have these moments of “scream”. And since we can’t just stand up and shout, we keep it inside of us. But since we keep it inside of us, they grow, cumulate and get worse until it reaches the stage when it looks exactly like this picture although you can’t hear a single sound. The idea of the collective scream or shadow can relate to events that are less personal but affect each single one of us, such as war or feminine. There are lots of historical situation to which we can apply this illustration such as the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932) or Vietnamese War. This silent scream unites people
ReplyDeleteI think that this work of art really reflects some life situations when everything in you is screaming but you can’t do anything because the given situation requires you remain silent and calm. I find this painting really interesting but at the same time very anxious and disturbing. Perhaps because it consist of pure emotions and to a certain extend emotions are scary because they are unpredictable. Our society expects us to be silent and not to stand out, I disagree with it because I think that people should be allow to express their emotions (of course responsively) since if they don’t, one day they are simply going to explode because of all of those emotions that accumulated in them.
Seb G
ReplyDeleteI think that each artwork somehow reflects our selves. By looking at different paintings you are not only seeing the drawn elements but also your brain automatically imagines movement. For example, when you look at painting of forest, you imagine that wind is moving trees, sound coming from far away, smell and temperature. When you see a painting of people, you imagine how they feel and what they might think. If you see festival where people are happy, you also feel a bit happy, and I think this happens because your brain starts to imagine how people on that festival feel. When I just look at Scream, I don’t feel anything; I just see the famous painting. But when I look at it for a longer time, I imagine what person on the painting feels. And I wouldn’t say that he is scared of something. I wouldn’t also say that there was something bad happening in his life. Since the Scream isn’t painted realistic, I think that there is deeper meaning of all these. Someone might say that people like this painting because it shows that everyone once a while wants to scream, whether he or she has problems in life or is scared of something. Though, if painter wanted to show something like that, he would paint more realistic painting and represent the problem source. Since this painting isn’t painted in realistic style, I think that there is something else than just problems. Character on the painting is certainly not only screaming. He is going crazy and what is the reason. I think he realized what reality is. Everything is following its rules and even is something is going wrong it is still following rules. That means that no matter what you think, your thoughts are either following rules or not following them, but when they don’t follow rules, no one understands you or you don’t understand them either so everything is still following some rules. But what the rules are no one knows and it is why character on the painting is screaming because though it knows that we all are prisoned by rules, no one can do anything about it. And people on background represent all other people who has not discovered existence of rules and they don’t even bother with thinking about it.