The Scream

Friday 15 to Monday 18 – Oslo, Norway
Munch Museum

I very much enjoyed the three days we spent in Oslo, and could easily have spent a bit more time there. I definitely want to visit more of Norway as well, particularly some of the more rugged coastal areas. I’ve never wanted to do a cruise, the whole idea of being stuck on a large vessel with hundreds of random people just sounds horrendous; however, a Norwegian fjord cruise is something I would certainly consider. It would be an amazing way to see that globally unique section of coast.

Enough dreaming about a future that may not happen, let’s get back to today when we visited the Munch Museum.

I didn’t know a lot about Norway’s best known artist, Edvard Munch, though, like many, many others, I’m quite familiar with his most famous painting ‘The Scream’. When we researched this trip and found there was an entire museum dedicated to his life and work, all wrapped up in a quite spectacular building, we made visiting a ‘must-do’.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a prolific artist, creating over 26,000 works over his life. Born in a small village his family moved to Kristiania, as Oslo was then known, when he was very young. Munch spent time in Paris and Berlin before settling back in Oslo in 1897 where he remained for the rest of his life.

There are numerous versions of The Scream; two painted, two in pastels and several lithographs. The museum had a painting, a pastel and a lithograph on display, though they only display them one at a time in a darkened room. I managed to get quite close to the lithograph, getting a nice clean photo, though I prefer this version.

A very excited crowd started to grow as the time the painting was revealed approached; I wasn’t going to fight my way to the front, electing to take a crowd shot on my phone instead.

The Munch – as the museum is now called, only opened in 2020 and, as I said earlier is housed in quite a spectacular building. It sits next to the equally spectacular Opera House, with its wide sloping roof which the public are allowed to walk on. It’s surprisingly quite steep in places and there were more than a few people holding onto the hand rails on the side. As it was a Sunday the Opera House was closed, as were quite a lot of the shops. Norway seems to have work-life balance as a priority.

We stopped for coffee in the museum café, and I had to have a Scream cookie to dunk into the very nice flat white.

We should have bought tickets before the coffee as we discovered too late that entry to the gallery is timed and we had a 45 minute wait before we could go in. Eleanor and I went for a walk outside and found this lovely modern block of flats nearby, which we both agreed we would love to live in. The ground floor flats had balconies with access to drop a canoe into the harbour as an added bonus. I can’t imagine what they cost.

We spent a couple of hours browsing the interesting galleries, Munch certainly lived an interesting and occasionally wild life as well as making some good art. I particularly liked this quite disturbing piece, and annoyingly I failed to get its name. A lot of his work was quite disturbing in its way, with the stylised face from The Scream prevalent.

He also painted a number of huge works including ‘The Reseachers’.

My favourite part was an interactive room depicting life in the Munch household in the early 20th century. The room had this very cool electronic screen easel, which in my view, made for a great photo.

Disappointingly the roof bar was closed on a Sunday so we didn’t get to go to the very top of the building, but the view from floor below was still very good. It is a spectacular building both in and out and if you get to Oslo I recommend a visit.