By Hal Brown
Sometimes there are no words to express how we react to Trump’s latest outrage. For example here’s how I posted the link to a HuffPost story on my blog. (My blog’s most recent International stats)
It doesn’t have to be a published story that prompts the reaction that all you want to do is scream in terror in contemplation of more years of this.
For example, just watching segments from a Trump rally as I did when they played them on Morning Joe today was enough to make me want to scream when I thought that Trump could actually win.
In putting the image on my blog, I wondered what Edvard Munch’s motivation to paint and draw these iconic images was. This was easy enough to find on this website.
Inspiration for The Scream
Norwegian by birth, Edvard Munch studied at the Oslo Academy with famous Norwegian artist Christian Krohg. He created the first version of The Scream in 1893 when he was about 30 years old, and made the fourth and final version of The Scream in 1910. He has described himself in a book written in 1900 as nearly going insane, like his sister Laura who was committed to a mental institution during this time period as well. Personally he discussed being pushed to his limits, and going through a very dark moment in his life.
The scene of The Scream was based on a real, actual place located on the hill of Ekeberg, Norway, on a path with a safety railing. The faint city and landscape represent the view of Oslo and the Oslo Fjord. At the bottom of the Ekeberg hill was the madhouse where Edvard Munch’s sister was kept, and nearby was also a slaughterhouse. Some accounts describe that in those times you could actually hear the cries of animals being killed, as well as the cries of the mentally disturbed patients in the distance. In this setting, Edvard Munch was likely inspired by screams that he actually heard in this area, combined with his personal inner turmoil. Edvard Munch wrote in his diary that his inspiration for The Scream came from a memory of when he was walking at sunset with two friends, when he began to feel deeply tired. He stopped to rest, leaning against the railing. He felt anxious and experienced a scream that seemed to pass through all of nature. The rest is left up to an endless range of interpretations, all expressed from this one, provocative image.
More from The Mysterious Road From Edvard Munch’s The Scream
In his diary in an entry headed “Nice 22 January 1892”, Munch described his inspiration for the image:
One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.
This memory was later rendered by Munch as a poem, which he hand-painted onto the frame of the 1895 pastel version of the work:
I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.
.
Munch’s screamer is depicted in pop culture (see Pop Culture Work Inspired By Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”) including an entire movie franchise with that name:
Ghostface (alternatively stylized as Ghost Face or GhostFace) is a fictional identity adopted by several characters in the Scream series. The figure is primarily mute in person but voiced over the phone by Roger L. Jackson, regardless of who is behind the mask. Ghostface first appeared in Scream (1996) as a disguise used by teenagers Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), during their killing spree in the fictional town of Woodsboro. Ghostface was created by screenwriter Kevin Williamson. The mask is inspired by[7] The Scream painting by Edvard Munch and was created and designed by Fun World costume company employee Brigitte Sleiertin as a Halloween costume, prior to being discovered by Marianne Maddalena and Craven for the film. The identity is used primarily as a disguise for the antagonists of each film to conceal their identities while conducting serial murders, and as such has been portrayed by several actors. Wikipedia
In the movies the mask was worn on the outside to hide the killer’s identity. Trump doesn’t hide his identity behind a horror movie mask. What you see is who he is.
There is no other emoji that is based on a work of art either.
Trump is a malignant narcissist:
The social psychologist Erich Fromm first coined the term "malignant narcissism" in 1964, describing it as a "severe mental sickness" representing "the quintessence of evil". He characterized the condition as "the most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity".[4] Wikipedia
Articles like this “The week in polls: Trump roars back in Florida, Biden gains in Georgia” don’t help with the fear.
Trump evokes a silent or out loud scream when we contemplate four more years of this manifestation of pure evil as he gives us a preview of what he wants to turn this country into.