Handwritten beneath the image of the figure on a bridge is the title of the work in German—"Geschrei"—and, in the lower right-hand corner, the phrase "Ich fühlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur" (I felt the great scream in nature). It is a quotation from an autobiographical text Munch had written some years earlier, in which he described an experience he had while walking along the road near his hometown, Kristiania (now Oslo). Munch made about thirty impressions of this print, some on colored paper or hand colored in watercolor, and some without the title and text. Because an image inked on a lithography stone is flipped in the printing process, lithographs based on preexisting images generally reverse the original. In this case, Munch inked the image in reverse so the printed sheet would have a composition identical to that of the painting.
Gallery label from Edvard Munch: The Scream, October 24, 2012–April 29, 2013 .
