What I see and feel about “The Scream”

Despite I’ve seen it several times in the past, I didn’t know who painted “The Scream” for a very long period of time.  Nonetheless every time I see it, I hear a very eerie and peculiar sound of screaming.  And it sounds loudly in my heart too.  I felt as if he is screaming from top of his lungs.  I can see the pain of a painter through his masterpiece.  It is so dry that I can also feel his loneliness.  Suffering is all around him.  The heat from the painting is so intense and it mirrors in the hearts of all viewers.  No wonder everyone who sees it also feels the pain and hears loud and depressing scream. 

Have you ever screamed? If your answer is yes, just think of the reason why you screamed.  Was it because of physical pain?  Or emotionally hurt? Or out of fear?  We scream because we are severely hurt either physically or emotionally.  In other words, suffering makes us shout aloud to let other know that we are in pain. 

This painting, “The Scream”, makes me think of some key chains I’ve seen in one of the magazines some decades ago.  I’m not sure they still exist these days.  They were made from heads of small animals like squirrels, tiny monkeys, etc.  The strange thing was their facial expressions.   They all were screaming as if they were in deep pain before they died.  After I realized the way they were made, I was thrilled and felt disgusted of those people who made these types of key chains.  These small animals were put in very small cages with lids which has a tiny hole.  Only their heads were out from these tiny holes of lids.  Then they were suddenly pricked with pin.  They screamed out of pain.  While they screamed, they were beheaded to capture their frightful facial expressions.  It’s so cruel.  What a unspeakable thing of human act.  I don’t know what kind of people buys these types of key chains.  The whole process is very inhumane and gruesome.  Thus, screaming usually comes out of pain or fear.

  

To me at least, “The Scream” represents suffering.  It vividly illustrates the suffering of being a human.  That’s the very essence Buddha said 2,500 years ago.  Life, in its true color, is full of suffering.  We all cannot see its true color because of greed, hatred and delusions we have in our mind always.  They trick our eyes to see life’s true form.  Only those who with full of consciousness can distinguish what is real from illusion.  I believe Edvard Munch who was one of the great painters of 19^th Century attained some form of mindfulness by paintings repeatedly with a very concentrated mind and he was able to see life’s true form somehow.  Most of his paintings indicate suffering of human being in one form or another.  He sees human suffering in everywhere.  He made sure he captured those sufferings in almost all his paintings.  One of his poems also highlighted his phenomenon on impermanence of life too.   

It says:

“From my rotting body,

flowers shall grow

and I am in them

and that is eternity.”

~ Edvard Munch ~

Every time I see “The Scream”, I hear a very eerie and peculiar sound of screaming. It reminds me of the true color of life... the suffering.

Max

5 July 2011