Conservation specialists at the Munch Museum started the process of restoring the two paintings Scream and Madonna just after they were returned to the museum in August 2006.
The work was conducted on the basis of a comprehensive appraisal of the damaged pictures. When the paintings were recovered, two years after the theft, a detailed report of the damages was drawn up. The paintings were examined thoroughly, among other things with the help of microscope, x-radiography, and ultraviolet and infrared reflectography. Samples of pigments and binding agents were sent to external laboratories for analysis. A great quantity of information about the technical and chemical composition of the pictures were accumulated, and the conservation methods being used today are based on the result of these tests and reports, in addition to a meticulous evaluation of the choice of methods. In order to insure the quality of the work, experts from international art conservation arenas were consulted.
The two restored paintings was presented in an exhibition at the Munch Museum from 23.5. to 26.9.2008, together with relevant artworks from the collection and documentation of the main features of the conservation procedures. Two publications that provide insight into the conservation work, as well as present the results of research in art history and conservation, was published in connection with the exhibition. The books are available in Norwegian, English and Japanese editions.
Read more about the conservation of Scream and Madonna
Picture of Scream and Madonna, September 2006
Paper conservator Gry Landro studies the Scream through a microscope.
Paper conservator Gry Landro consolidates the edges of the Scream.
Painting conservator Jin Ferrer repairs the tear in Madonna.
Painting conservator Jin Ferrer repairs the tear in Madonna.
Close up view of the tear in Madonna.
About the motif Scream and Madonna
The Scream and Madonna in the Munch Museum collection were in the artist's possession when he died in 1944, and part of his great bequest to the City of Oslo.
The Scream in the Munch Museum is one of two painted versions of the image. The other is to be found in the National Gallery, Oslo. The National Gallery version is signed and dated 1893, and many scholars believe this to be the first one. Both versions are painted on cardboard, and Munch has also sketched the image on the reverse side of the National Gallery version. The Scream - one of the two versions - was first exhibited at Unter den Linden in Berlin in December 1893. In 1895 an important version of the image was produced as a lithograph. There exist two pastels of the image, one belonging to the Munch Museum, the other privately owned. There are also a few sketches related to The Scream on a sheet of paper in the Munch Museum collection
A text from Munch's diary in 1892 relates to The Scream:
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 I felt a great, infinite scream pass
through nature.
The Munch Museum Madonna is painted on canvas. There are four additional painted versions of the image. The National Gallery Oslo and the Hamburger Kunsthalle each have one, while two are in private collections. The Munch Museum Madonna is dated 1893-94. In 1895 Munch made a lithographic version of Madonna, with a decorative frame depicting spermatozoa and an embryo. Several poetic texts related to Madonna underscore the intimate relationship between love and death:
...Now life is shaking hands with death
The chain that binds together the thousand generations
of dead with the thousand generations yet to be born
has been tied...
The Scream and Madonna are both central in a cycle of images Munch called The Frieze of Life, which he described as "a poem about life, love and death". |
