I was walking along a path with two friends
the sun was setting
I felt a breath of melancholy
Suddenly the sky turned blood red
I stopped and leant against the railing, deathly tired
looking out across flaming clouds that hung
like blood and a sword over the deep blue fjord and town
My friends walked on
I stood there trembling with anxiety
and felt a great, infinite scream pass through nature.
Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893.