Munch The Scream: Krakatoa Sky, Four Versions, Hidden Inscription, and $119.9 Million at Sotheby's

Last updated: May 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin

Edvard Munch (Løten, Norway, 1863 – Ekely, Norway, 1944) painted The Scream (Skrik) in 1893 at age 30, as one of four versions of the composition across different media. The primary oil and tempera on cardboard version (91 × 73.5 cm) is at the National Museum of Norway in Oslo (Nasjonalmuseet). The Scream is the most globally recognised Expressionist painting and the canonical image of modern anxiety: the human figure on the bridge, the wavy lines of the sky and fjord, the orange-red sunset, and the hands pressed against the face in the gesture of existential dread have been reproduced more than almost any other image in the history of visual culture. DeckArts Berlin reproduces The Scream on Grade-A Canadian maple from approximately $140, shipping from Berlin.

The Krakatoa Sky: Where the Orange-Red Came From

The orange-red sky in The Scream is not imagined or conventionally symbolic. It is a specific atmospheric phenomenon that Munch and many other Scandinavian observers experienced during the winter of 1883–84 and again in subsequent years: the vivid orange-red sunsets produced by the stratospheric aerosol cloud generated by the eruption of Krakatoa volcano (Sunda Strait, Indonesia) on 26–27 August 1883.

The Krakatoa eruption was the largest volcanic event of the 19th century: approximately 20 cubic kilometres of material were ejected into the stratosphere at altitudes of 25–35 km, where the sulphur dioxide particles formed sulphate aerosols that remained suspended for 2–3 years. As these aerosols slowly spread globally, they created vivid optical effects at sunset and sunrise: the scattered light in the aerosol layer added intense orange, red, and purple tones to the sky at low sun angles, producing sunsets described across Europe and North America as unprecedented in their vividness and duration. In Scandinavia, the Krakatoa sunsets were particularly dramatic due to the low sun angles at northern latitudes in winter: the sun was already near the horizon for extended periods, and the aerosol scattering created orange-red skies that lasted for hours.

Munch recorded his experience of one of these skies in his diary of January 22, 1892: "I was walking with friends — the sun began to set — suddenly the sky turned blood-red. I stopped, leaned against the fence, dead tired — and I saw the flaming clouds like blood and a sword — the blue-black fjord and city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I felt an endless scream passing through nature." The orange-red sky in The Scream is the Krakatoa sunset. The anxiety the painting depicts is not a metaphor for modern alienation but a specific response to a specific atmospheric event caused by a specific geological event on the other side of the world.

The atmospheric science confirmation of this interpretation came from researchers at Texas State University and other institutions who analysed the specific orange-red colour and the cloud formations visible in The Scream against historical atmospheric data from the Krakatoa eruption period. Their 2003 paper concluded that the sky conditions depicted in The Scream are consistent with observed nacreous cloud formations (polar stratospheric clouds) combined with Krakatoa aerosol scattering, observed in Oslo in the winter of 1883–84. The orange-red is not artistic exaggeration; it is documentary accuracy.

Four Versions: Which Is the "Real" Scream

Munch created four versions of The Scream composition across different media between 1893 and 1910. Each version has equal claim to authenticity as Munch's own work; none is definitively the "original":

Version 1 (1893): Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard, 91 × 73.5 cm. National Museum of Norway (Nasjonalmuseet), Oslo. This is the version most commonly referred to as "The Scream" and the one whose composition is most familiar from reproductions. The orange-red sky is rendered in the most vivid and most layered technique of the four versions. Previously held at the Munch Museum, Oslo; transferred to the Nasjonalmuseet when the museum's new building opened in 2022.

Version 2 (1893): Pastel on cardboard, 79 × 59 cm. This is the version that sold at Sotheby's New York on 2 May 2012 for $119,922,500 — at the time a world record for any work of art at public auction. The buyer was financier Leon Black. The pastel version differs from the oil version in the softness of its colour transitions and the specific quality of the pastel medium's surface texture. In 2022, Black sold his art collection amid reputational concerns about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein; the pastel Scream was reportedly included in subsequent sales.

Version 3 (1895): Oil on cardboard, 83.5 × 66 cm. Private collection. The least publicly visible of the four versions; little technical documentation available.

Version 4 (1910): Tempera on cardboard, 83 × 66 cm. Munch Museum (Munchmuseet), Oslo. Stolen from the Munch Museum in August 2004 along with Munch's Madonna; recovered in 2006. The 2004 theft — two armed men walked into the museum in daylight, removed the paintings from the wall, and left through the emergency exit — was the most audacious art theft in Norwegian history and generated global media attention.

The Hidden Inscription: Confirmed Munch's Own Writing 2021

The National Museum of Norway announced in February 2021 that infrared analysis of the Version 1 Scream had confirmed the authorship of a pencil inscription visible in the upper left corner of the painting: "Could only have been painted by a madman." The inscription had been visible for decades but its authorship was disputed — some scholars argued it was added by a vandal or critic after Munch's death; others argued it was Munch's own addition.

The 2021 infrared and handwriting analysis compared the inscription with dated and authenticated examples of Munch's handwriting from the same period. The National Museum's conclusion was that the handwriting is consistent with Munch's known hand from approximately 1895, and that the inscription was therefore most likely added by Munch himself — probably in response to critics who had questioned his mental stability following the first public display of the work. If the attribution is correct, the inscription is Munch's sardonic self-commentary: he anticipated and incorporated the criticism of his sanity into the work itself.

The inscription — "Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand!" ("Could only have been painted by a madman!") in Norwegian — transforms the painting's meaning if Munch is the author: it is simultaneously the painting and the painting's own critique of itself, the work and the work's awareness of how it will be received. Munch, who was hospitalised for nervous exhaustion in 1908–09 and who struggled with anxiety and alcohol dependence throughout his life, was the most appropriate person to make this comment about his own most famous work.

$119.9 Million at Sotheby's 2012: The Most Expensive Work on Paper

The Sotheby's New York sale of the pastel version of The Scream on 2 May 2012 achieved $119,922,500 (including buyer's premium) — at the time a world auction record for any work of art, and still (as of 2026) the highest price ever achieved for a work on paper at public auction. The sale broke the previous record ($104.3M for Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, 2010, Christie's) and established a new benchmark for Post-Impressionist and Expressionist works.

The buyer — financier Leon Black, founder of Apollo Global Management — paid the equivalent of approximately $141M in 2026 value for a pastel on cardboard measuring 79 × 59 cm. The price per square centimetre of the work's surface area was approximately $30,000 — among the highest ever achieved for a two-dimensional work of any kind. The sale attracted 45 bidders from multiple countries and lasted approximately 12 minutes from the opening bid to the final hammer. The auctioneer's description of the sale as "an extraordinary moment in art market history" was not an overstatement.

The sale had specific art market consequences: it established The Scream as a commodity in the highest tier of the international art market, alongside Picasso, Van Gogh, and Monet; it confirmed the market's willingness to pay nine-figure sums for works outside the French Impressionist tradition that had previously dominated the top tier; and it generated the first significant international media attention for Munch's work since the 2004 museum theft. The market impact of the 2012 sale is still felt: any Munch work appearing at auction since 2012 is priced in relation to the $119.9M benchmark.

The Screaming Figure: Who or What Is It

The central figure in The Scream — the androgynous, skull-like face pressing its hands against its cheeks in what appears to be a gesture of horror or overwhelming sensation — is the most discussed figure in Expressionist painting and one of the most discussed in Western art history. Munch described the experience that the figure represents in his diary (January 22, 1892): he was walking with friends, saw the Krakatoa sunset, felt an "endless scream passing through nature," and was overwhelmed by the experience to the point of stopping and leaning against the fence while his friends walked on.

The figure is Munch himself. But the figure is also specifically not a realistic portrait: the face is skull-like, the body is boneless and wavy, the proportions are distorted, and the hands-against-face gesture is ambiguous — it could be a gesture of covering the ears (trying not to hear the scream), of pressing the skull to prevent it from exploding, or of simply holding the face in the hands in a gesture of overwhelming sensation. Munch's intention was not to depict a person screaming but a person hearing or feeling the scream that is passing through nature around them: the figure is the receiver of the scream, not its source.

This distinction is critical for understanding the painting's emotional content: The Scream is not a painting of a person in distress crying out. It is a painting of a person overwhelmed by the anxiety that the universe itself — the orange-red sky, the wavy fjord, the undulating landscape — appears to be generating and transmitting. The anxiety is not psychological in origin; it is cosmological. This is Expressionism's specific contribution to the history of painting: the externalisation of inner psychological states into the landscape, the sky, and the physical environment, making the world itself the expression of inner experience.

The Scream on Dark Walls: Navy, Charcoal, Black

The Scream's specific palette — orange-red and yellow sky, dark blue-black fjord and landscape, the pale skull-like face — creates dramatic and specific relationships with dark wall colours. The orange-red sky on a dark wall is the most chromatic warm-cool contrast available in the DeckArts Expressionist range.

Deep navy (#1B2A4A): The dark blue-black fjord and landscape in The Scream echo the navy wall's cool dark. The painting's dark zones merge with the navy, and the orange-red sky advances from the continuous dark field at maximum warm-cool contrast. The skull-like pale face floats from the dark landscape as the composition's most specific element. The navy wall and the dark landscape create a continuous cool-dark ground from which the warm orange-red sky blazes. This is the most dramatically beautiful Scream installation: the orange-red sky appears to float above the merged dark of painting and wall.

Warm charcoal (#3A3A3A): The most contemporary installation. The charcoal provides a cool-neutral dark ground against which the orange-red sky advances as warm-on-cool. The dark landscape reads as a slightly lighter dark than the charcoal wall, maintaining its visual separation from the ground. For a dark academia or contemporary dark living room or hallway, warm charcoal provides the most versatile dark ground for The Scream.

Black lacquer or matte black: The most dramatically confrontational installation. On absolute black, every element of The Scream's composition reads with maximum clarity: the orange-red sky at full warm-on-absolute-dark contrast; the pale face at maximum brightness from the darkest possible ground; the dark landscape as a slightly warmer dark than the absolute black wall. For an Art Deco hallway or a contemporary dark entry space, The Scream on matte black is the threshold installation: maximum visual impact at close range.

The Scream for Hallway, Study, and Dark Academia

The Scream is the DeckArts work most specifically suited to the hallway installation for a specific psychological reason: the hallway is the threshold — the space between the outside world and the domestic interior, between the social and the private, between the public face and the private self. The Scream depicts precisely this threshold experience: a person at the boundary of the public (on a bridge, with friends walking away) and the private (the overwhelming inner experience of the Krakatoa sky), overwhelmed by the transition between the two states.

The hallway installation argument: The Scream in the hallway is a daily reminder that the threshold between the outside world and the domestic interior is a real threshold — that something genuinely happens when you cross it, that the transition between social and private life is not neutral but charged with the specific anxiety that Munch depicted. Whether this reminder is welcome or not is a matter of personal temperament; for those who appreciate the specific dark academia ambient that welcomes complexity rather than comfort, it is the correct threshold installation.

For a dark academia study, The Scream on forest green or warm charcoal above the desk creates the ambient of existential engagement: the work at this desk happens in the awareness that the outside world is capable of producing the overwhelming sensation that Munch depicted — and that the response is not to flee but to paint. The biographical content is specifically dark academia: Munch experienced the Krakatoa sky as unbearable and made it bearable by translating it into one of the most celebrated paintings in the history of art. The dark academia ethos is precisely this transformation: difficulty into work, anxiety into creation.

Expressionism and The Scream: The Movement It Founded

The Scream is the foundational work of Expressionism as a visual movement — not because it was the first Expressionist painting (Munch's earlier works, including the Frieze of Life series of which The Scream is a part, develop the Expressionist visual vocabulary from approximately 1890) but because it is the work that most clearly and most powerfully demonstrates the Expressionist programme: the externalisation of inner psychological states into the physical environment, the distortion of observable reality to express subjective emotional truth, and the body as the site of overwhelming sensation rather than as a vehicle of narrative action.

The Expressionist movement — which developed in Germany (Die Brücke, 1905; Der Blaue Reiter, 1911) in the decade following Munch's Scream — took from Munch the specific visual strategies that The Scream demonstrates: the wavy line as the expression of anxiety (rather than the descriptive tool of realistic depiction); the distorted face as the expression of overwhelming inner experience (rather than the portrait convention of dignified likeness); the landscape as the projection of inner states (rather than the naturalistic depiction of observable external reality). Kirchner, Nolde, Marc, Kandinsky, and the other German Expressionists all cite Munch as a primary influence.

The Scream vs Starry Night: Two Anxious Skies

The summary: The Scream and the Starry Night are the two most celebrated anxious skies in Western art, from the same decade, by the same generation of Post-Impressionist artists. The Scream's sky is warm, overwhelming, and documentarily accurate to a specific geological event; the Starry Night's sky is cool, beautiful, and a synthesised composition. The Scream is the more confrontational domestic installation; the Starry Night is the more beautiful. Both are correct depending on what register the buyer wants their room to occupy.

DeckArts

Munch — The Scream (~$140)

1893, National Museum Oslo. Krakatoa orange sky — documentary accuracy. Four versions. $119.9M Sotheby's 2012. Hidden inscription confirmed Munch's own writing 2021. On Canadian maple from ~$140.

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FAQ

Why is the sky orange in The Scream?

The orange-red sky in Munch's The Scream (1893) is not symbolic but documentary: it depicts the vivid atmospheric sunsets produced by stratospheric aerosols from the eruption of Krakatoa volcano (Sunda Strait, Indonesia, 26–27 August 1883). The Krakatoa aerosols remained suspended in the stratosphere for 2–3 years, creating intense orange-red sunsets across Northern Europe. Munch recorded the specific experience in his diary (January 22, 1892): "suddenly the sky turned blood-red." Texas State University researchers confirmed in 2003 that the sky conditions in The Scream are consistent with observed Krakatoa atmospheric effects in Oslo. DeckArts from ~$140.

How many versions of The Scream are there?

Four. Version 1 (1893, oil/tempera/pastel on cardboard, National Museum Oslo — the most familiar). Version 2 (1893, pastel on cardboard, sold Sotheby's 2012 for $119.9M to Leon Black — most expensive work on paper ever sold). Version 3 (1895, oil on cardboard, private collection). Version 4 (1910, tempera on cardboard, Munch Museum Oslo — stolen 2004, recovered 2006). DeckArts reproduces The Scream from ~$140.

What does the inscription in The Scream say?

The inscription in Munch's The Scream (Version 1, 1893, National Museum Oslo) reads in Norwegian: "Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand!" — "Could only have been painted by a madman!" Infrared analysis and handwriting comparison by the National Museum of Norway in 2021 confirmed the inscription is consistent with Munch's own handwriting from approximately 1895, most likely added by Munch himself in response to critics questioning his mental stability. DeckArts from ~$140.

What wall colour for Munch The Scream?

Deep navy (#1B2A4A) is the most dramatically beautiful wall colour for The Scream: the painting's dark blue-black fjord and landscape merge with the navy, and the orange-red sky advances from the continuous cool dark ground at maximum warm-cool contrast. Warm charcoal is the most versatile dark choice for contemporary rooms. Black lacquer is the most confrontational for hallways. All require warm LED 2700K — the orange-red sky reads most vividly under warm light. DeckArts from ~$140.

Is The Scream good for dark academia?

Yes. The Scream is specifically suited to dark academia for the biographical argument: Munch experienced the Krakatoa sky as overwhelming and made it bearable by translating it into one of the most celebrated paintings in art history. The dark academia ethos is precisely this transformation — anxiety into creation, difficulty into work. The Scream above a dark academia desk on forest green or charcoal says: the person working here engages with overwhelming experience and makes something from it. DeckArts from ~$140.

Article Summary

Edvard Munch (Løten 1863 – Ekely 1944) painted The Scream (Skrik, 1893, 91 × 73.5 cm, National Museum Oslo) at age 30. Four versions: V1 1893 oil (Nasjonalmuseet Oslo), V2 1893 pastel ($119.9M Sotheby's 2012, buyer Leon Black — world record for work on paper), V3 1895 oil (private), V4 1910 tempera (Munch Museum Oslo, stolen 2004, recovered 2006). Orange-red sky: Krakatoa volcanic eruption (August 1883) produced stratospheric aerosols creating vivid sunsets across Northern Europe 1883–85; Texas State University 2003 confirmation. Munch diary January 22, 1892: "endless scream passing through nature." Hidden inscription "Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand!" — confirmed Munch's own handwriting by National Museum Norway, February 2021 (infrared + handwriting analysis, c.1895). Figure: Munch himself, receiver not source of the scream; hands-against-face = overwhelmed by cosmological anxiety, not crying out. Expressionism founder: Externalisation of inner states into landscape, distorted face, wavy line as anxiety expression → Die Brücke 1905, Der Blaue Reiter 1911. Best walls: deep navy (orange advances from cool dark), charcoal (contemporary), black lacquer (confrontational hallway). vs Starry Night: warm vs cool sky, documentary vs synthesised, confrontational vs beautiful. DeckArts from ~$140. Canadian maple. UV archival 100+ years. Berlin. 30-day return.

About the Author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of DeckArts and a creative director originally from Ukraine, now based in Berlin. With experience in branding, merchandise design and vector graphics, Stanislav connects classical art, skateboard culture and contemporary interior design through premium skateboard wall art.