Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - The Scream (1893)

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by writers/podcasters Cody Johnston and Katy Stoll (‘Some More News’ YouTube series, ‘Even More News’ podcast) for a look at why ‘The Scream’ is secretly incredibly fascinating. Direct link to see the main 1893 version of ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lqAfSAqID_AJjFiCwSVOSkjDW8oIQyYo/view?usp=sharing Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

The Scream. Known for being a painting. Famous for being screamy. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why The Scream is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. My two guests today are Cody Johnston and Katie Stoll. That's right, Cody Johnston, Katie Stoll from Some More News on YouTube. Also, it's podcast entitled Even More News. We're also former colleagues at theformerworkplacecrack.com. Now we're all doing our own things, and Cody and Katie are tracking the politics and authoritarianism and bores

that are sweeping the world. They're also working with friends of this show like David Christopher Bell and Katie Golden, and Some More News is huge. I think they're doing a lot to legitimately de-radicalize people, especially on YouTube. Also, I've gathered

all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge that Cody and Katie each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino or Tongva, and K'iche' and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about the scream. The scream is visual art. So, the description of this episode on all players includes a direct link to an image of the

painting. You check the description, tap the link, and you can look at it right away. Very easy. Also, do you even need to look at it? Like, I encourage you to because there are some cool details we'll get into, but this is one of the few paintings on Earth that everyone has seen. Everyone knows it as a meme. It's kind of in everybody's head already. That's why we can talk about it on a podcast at all. So it's amazing that a painting has reached that status. Also, there's more going on in this painting called The Scream than you would ever realize, unless you heard the show, I guess. So I'm really glad you're here because you're about to see that painting and meme and everything else. It's become a whole new way. So please sit back or board your plane to the country of Norway because you're listening to this episode as vacation prep. Good thinking. Very smart.

Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Cody Johnston and Katie Stoll. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Cody, Katie, it's so good to see you. And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about the painting? The scream? Do you, do you, that's a, the Cody, you want to go first? Um, sure. Thank you. Um, I, uh, I mean, it's, I, I, I like the painting. Um, I guess my, like my relationship to it, uh, isn't deep or anything. I think my first introduction to it, like all things for me basically was, uh, the first like five seasons of The Simpsons.

Like as a child, you're like nine or ten and like you absorb all of their references. So I think it was Homer. They were like going to go to the museum. And then Homer's like, do they have foosball at the museum? And then he imagines playing foosball with Michelangelo's David and he beats him. He's like, I beat you, Michelangelo's David. Who's next?

And then the scream comes out and goes, me! And that's it. That was my- That's a good story, good reference. Yeah, that's my first introduction to the painting. Mine's very different. I mean, I'm sure yours isn't like, yeah, The Simpsons. And a little personal

if i'm gonna be honest um katie what if yours is the same and you just repeated that entire story like no no no no no no so homer like most things in my life uh my first exposure came from The Simpsons. No, I don't remember when I was first aware of The Scream. But my first real boyfriend had like a print of it in his dorm room. And so I kind of weirdly associate it with losing my virginity. Interesting. Katie, wow. Which is a very which is a very different but i you know i just i know that that i i don't know much about it but i know that it was there and i would look at it and this was

like my first anyway yeah that's my relationship to it man thank you for sharing that yeah i i which maybe i don't know it's a it's it A scream. Maybe, maybe it explains why it took a while for sex to be very enjoyable. I don't know. That's a reach. It is. I, I think I don't know a lot of people who own it. The one other episode of this podcast that has been about visual art was about American Gothic, which is the same way. Like it's kind of, no, most people don't own a picture of two stern Iowan farmers. You know, it's sort of not like home art, you know? It's interesting that they had a dorm screen.

Maybe it was a sort of I'm artistic sort of thing. Exactly, exactly. He had other things, just, you know, a general, you know, it's like that first place dorm room, you know, it was a good school. He was a serious kind of guy. I don't know. But yeah, he definitely had some, some art prints there, but yeah.

Yeah. That's interesting. That's because it is that like, uh, you know, there's a point where a lot of these pieces will get like, oh, it's just the, it's the famous painting that is more in like references and parodies yeah um than than just like a person who's like i appreciate this and i want i want a print of this yeah yeah yeah i think his family was very artistic and i don't know um but i did laugh out loud when you sent the email like well i've got a story for you it's like i'm good i've got a story for you.

It's like, I guess I'm going to have to share that story. That's too big of a coincidence. I'm remembering, I'm pretty sure I had a poster of the painting Nighthawks in my college dorm room. It's by Edward Hopper. It's like two people in a diner and then they're all kind of looking off into the distance, you know? Yeah. hopper it's like two people in a diner and then they're all kind of looking off into the distance you know yeah and i think i i think me and everyone else i knew got our posters at one

sale at the start of college no one brought posters yeah yeah yeah yeah you go to the big tent they got all the rows you got here's the bands here's uh what jim belushi uh in uh the movie yeah yeah john belushi no no i'm thinking of Jim Belushi and Mr. Destiny. Actually. Thank you, Alex. Think of John Belushi and animal house.

One other question about it is it's very specific to this, but have you ever been to Norway? I have not. I've never been. I have not. No, I have not. Would love to.

You don't need to have gone, but this is by a Norwegian painter. That'll come up a lot. And from here, we can get into the first fascinating thing about the topic, because it is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And that is in a segment called Alex. He works in the podcast and store saving his fun facts for someday. Some of his fans, they left a note on the door they said schmitty please give me some numbers oh you know the sif pod will give you some stats you ought to know numbers now and uh that name was submitted by matt hawkins we have a new name every week please make them silly and wacky and bad submit to sif pod on twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com those really good beautiful

very well executed I the first like real concert I ever saw was the Elton John Billy Joel stadium tour really that's a big one yeah yeah that is a big one it was good they had like interlocking grand pianos

everybody yeah that's my first concert was New Kids on the Block. I was like four. Anyway. That's pretty good. That's cool. Cody, concert? I think my first concert was They Might Be Giants.

That's cool. That's actually cool. Yeah, yeah. I was just tagging along with my babysitter's daughters. Anyway. Well, and the numbers for this one are also sort of a biography of the artist. There's a painting by the artist Edvard Munch. And his last name spelled M-U-N-C-H, which I pronounced Munch until I researched this.

It turns out his Edvard Munch is his name. The first number is 1863 to 1944, because that's his lifespan. He was born in a small town called Luton. And then he painted The Scream in 1893 when he was about 30 years old and then died in 1944 outside of Oslo at age 80. So other than some trips, he kind of spent his life in Norway. That's a long life. 80?

Yeah. And for an artist in that time, like 80 years is pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't complain about that. Yeah. A lot of these numbers are about his life being darkened hard.

And it turns out like it makes sense that he's the guy who made this painting. Next number is five. Five is how many years old Munch was when his mother died of tuberculosis. He then became closest to one of his sisters who died of tuberculosis when he was a teenager. Also, his father was a hardcore Christian fundamentalist. He had another sister diagnosed with schizophrenia. Generally, a very just difficult, like old timey childhood. Oh, yeah. That that sounds very, very hard.

That's an understatement. I mean, uh, and then the most extreme part, next number is 13. 13 is monk's age when his family told him that he should prepare to die. Oh my God. He,

I know he had, we'll, we'll get past this stuff. I swear. Uh, he, he had, he had, we'll get past this stuff, I swear. He had tuberculosis. And then according to the In Our Time podcast episode about Monk, at Christmastime 1875,

he was in a sickbed with tuberculosis and his father told him to prepare to meet his maker. And he did that. And then he just happened to get better. But so he had a near-death experience at age 13 wow and as an adult he had a pretty wild life and it seems like maybe this difficult childhood was part of it yeah i would imagine yeah i mean if you yeah if you're accepting death at that early uh you would live uh more and you've seen like your two mother figures died to tuberculosis specifically so because yeah so he's got yeah his mother then his sister and then him potentially uh there's like a

few famous monk quotes and one of them is illness insanity and death were the black angels that stood by my cradle end quote so it's like it's it's you sometimes you come across an artist. Like I remember learning about the guy who played the bad guy in the movie A Knight's Tale. And it was like, actually, the real guy is very kind. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. This is this is the guy who painted the scream is the guy you think painted the scream. Is this kind of life situation and everything? Yeah. It's a series of emo quotes. I mean, so far from what you've said, I'm like, this checks out.

Yeah. But yeah, and so then from there, next number here is five. Five is the number of versions of the scream. And I sent you guys images of all of them. There's some similarity there, but the second version is the famous one.

It was exhibited 1893. He also did a crayon version that year. He did a like woodcut print version in 1895. He did a version in pastels in 1895 and then did another whole painting of it in 1910. He did a lot of copies of it and versions of it, partly because he was always tinkering with it, but also partly because he made a lot of money as an artist. And so a lot of copies of it and versions of it partly because he was always tinkering with it but also partly because he made a lot of money as an artist and so a lot of his works across his career he would sell and then redo yeah um to try to like still possess everything i really like the crayon one actually i was gonna say it's so interesting to see stuff like that because i was like you know you can use crayons to do like some amazing things and artists it's a it's a tool for artists but um it's also associated with children and when children draw yeah and so like this this one is like oh so like a talented child tried to copy

the scream with crayons yeah i think i think also a lot of artists will choose to call those pastels if they're using them but i am somewhat calling them yes yes because that's what it is let's call them what they will call it like it is also he has a pastel version um and then the crayon version like there are two distinct uh things going on and uh it's like yep that's crayon got his crayons out the other the other fun thing about how monk did art is that he believed in letting his art get damaged like physically okay he felt that like once something happened to it that was part of it and that was part of the deal that's cool yeah i think it's like neat and also he really leaned. One, one thing with the main version of the scream is when he was working on it, he,

it was really late at night and he got sloppy about blowing out a candle and he blew wax onto it. And so one way people can tell which one is the real one is there's like a wax splatter in the lower right corner of it. Oh, I love that. That's really cool. Yeah.

Um, that seems to also just sort of go back to being 13 and being told that you need to accept your death right like just things things happen and like yeah that's to accept it that's and then you move on and that's uh how it goes and then just sort of taking that and just applying it to every aspect of his life including your scars are beautiful kind of a thing too too, is another way to look at it. But yeah. Yeah, it happens.

There's nothing wrong with it. It's part of it. I think all those are right on, yeah. And then the extreme version is he kind of didn't bother to store anything properly. According to author Edward Dolnick, Munch would leave his paintings on the floor. He would also leave them in the yard. And so if they got rained on or snowed on or whatever, that was what happened, whatever. He would, when he was cooking in the kitchen, if he couldn't find a lid, he would just grab

a painting and put that over the pot. Like that's what he would use. And then the In Our Time podcast says one time a dog like ran through one of his canvases and damaged it and he was just like that's the painting now that's what i've done that's that's my art i love that um i mean sounds like also maybe he's like you know suffering from depression and stuff yeah there's another explanation he's like what can you do? But that is very cool. Just like letting him lie around and stuff. Yeah.

We're not going to talk much about his mental health, but his adult life included alcoholism, paranoia, erratic behavior, not many stable relationships, times in sanitariums. Like he did not have an easy go of it. But in the middle of it he he also developed these artistic ideas right yeah and i really like the idea of him using paintings as lids when he's like boiling water and stuff that's just neat it's the kind of thing that like see what happens yeah it's the kind of thing that like today you'd see an artist do that as their art not just like yeah i'm taking my painting i'm using it as this like no i'm gonna i'm gonna make a piece right exactly like i'm gonna put paint in a bowl and i'm gonna put that and i'm gonna put it in the microwave and see what that you know

as opposed to just like yeah i'll use a freaking uh whatever whatever I got. That's my best Edvard mug. I'm painting the screen. Forget about it. Exactly. That's Norwegian, right? Right. His famous quote, I'm painting here. I'm painting here. That's great. Forget about

my paintings. Last number here is 55 and 55 is the eventual number of paintings in something that munk called the freeze of life and that's freeze spelled f-r-i-e-z-e which is like a big tableau or set of images according to in our time monk's career goal was to make one super artwork of all of his artworks and the the german word for it is gesamtkunstwerk which means total artwork and so monk's situation was he kept like making something meaning to put it in the freeze of life and selling it so then he would need to make it again and like sell it and make it. And that's why there are so many screams, but also other stuff too. Oh, cool.

Interesting. So we, we know him for one painting, but he meant to do like a super artwork encompassing all of life was his goal. So he did not end up doing that or he did. 55 was he ended up doing 55. Yeah. Yeah. He ended up, he first exhibited it in 1902 and then it like grew

and shrank over the years and was kind of unofficially his goal but there's there's no way to know like the whole thing without it all being in a building or something yeah yeah right that's interesting just i'm now i'm now just sort of scrolling through these um one of the uses the scream background for one of them, but it's not the scream. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah. Like making it a part.

It's a, it's a, it's a part of, of this whole, this holistic statement, um, of emotion as opposed to just like, no, I did the scream and that's what that is. And that's the background and so on. It's very cool. Yeah. There's a, I sang as a painting he did called anxiety. That was the year after the scream and it's like the same bridge and sky and everything but a crowd of people with freaky faces and it feels like a sequel or something yeah that one yeah that one scares me

yeah probably gives you some anxiety some of the faces it does um i love the one of the man looking into the water with his hand. Oh, yeah. That one is called Melancholy. He had I don't mean to pigeonhole him as just doing this one kind of thing, but he did a lot of this kind of thing. He was really. He kind of did it for himself. And we're starting to understand why.

But yeah. This is peace down in the dumps. Man, I really wish he had artworks like Case of the Mondays and like... I was about to say that same one! Yeah, now we're in the mug zone. Now we got it. Yeah, yeah, this is great.

He's actually the one... He did the original Hang In There Baby of the little cat hanging from the rope. Yeah, that was the... Okay. I wasn't gonna do it, but I was circling that one too. he did the original hang in there baby of the little cat okay I wasn't gonna do it but I was circling that one too oh man just sell out monk that would be great

just doing like inspirational posters and stuff for like corporation yeah Linda and from here there's three big takeaways for the episode let's get into them starting with takeaway number one edvard munk says the scream happened in real life oh this is this is a painting of a situation he

was in that happened to him oh Oh, interesting. Including the person? Or is just this an event and an emotion that he is using the figure to express? Yeah, how literal are we talking? That's a good question. And I'm pretty sure the figure, it's not necessarily supposed to be him, but it's his experience of it.

He doesn't look like that weird, like hairless, odd figure that is doing the screaming. Yeah, his face isn't shaped like that. I would say that this person right here is undead, is what it looks like to me in the screen. Yeah, it's sort of a, it really looks like that mask in the Scream movies. Like it's this pale face without a lot of features.

Yeah. Edvard Munch kept really extensive journals and really extensive diaries. And it was a popular artist in his life that we didn't like discover him later. But a lot of his selling his art was like sharing stories about himself. And according to his journals, he had an experience that was, quote, 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 end quote so it's just it's a he just that's the painting that's what happened yeah okay yeah yeah he had an email moment the fire he was talking about a fire the fire turned turned the sky red and felt the scream. In Takeaway 2, we'll talk about the sky actually a little bit. Okay. The other thing about Munch is with all his art, he always said that it was interpretive. There's a famous Munch quote, which is, I paint not what I see, but what I saw.

I paint not what I see, but what I saw. I like that. And then another quote is, art is the opposite of nature. I do not what I see, but what I saw. I like that. And then another quote is art is the opposite of nature. I do not imitate nature. I help myself to its bountiful platter, end quote. So he's doing a lot of painting how he feels about what happened. So either this happened or it's his experience of it. But it's a very extreme painting.

And I'm just amazed that we're like pretty sure he at least thinks it happened and it might have actually happened yeah like you don't um see that and go i bet that's that's based on uh uh based on true events absolutely not it's like yeah like it's yeah he was on the boardwalk and he he looked at scenery. He's like, I'm going to express this feeling. Not like, no, this happened to me. It happened to me one day. Right. Yeah, and also another source for this is there's a biography that's a graphic novel of Munch.

It's by an author named Stefan Kverneland. But he says that that description by Munch was written in 1892. So it's the year before he painted it. But he's describing an experience many years earlier. He says it definitely happened in the Oslo, Norway area. And art historians think they found like the location. If you go to Oslo, the city has put up like a historical marker for the hill where they believe monk had this like freaky anxious experience that became the painting that's cool yeah i would absolutely do that

yeah if you're there yeah that's the thing that i would do i'd yeah why not yeah yeah yeah and in the in the graphic novel it switches to photographs because the author goes there and it's on a hill called valhalvayan and he points out other locations nearby that might actually be it but it's somewhere in this little cluster of hills on the outskirts of Oslo is where Munch decided that the sky turned red and and there was a scream going through the world right like it's a good way to phrase it too he decided that that's what was going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because the other thing with the title is it might not be about the figure screaming.

It's actually vague whether or not the person is screaming, even though I think of them shouting, you know. Right, right, right. I mean, the lines in the painting are, you know, they're curved, they're waving, they're I mean, the the the lines and the in the painting are, you know, they're, you know, curved. They're waving. They're wavy. So it is you get that sense of like reverberation. Also, it's going through that figure as well. Also, the people in the background do not seem to notice, you know, it's not a literal interpretation of somebody screaming. Right. And those and those figures aren't feeling it necessarily. That's true.

You would think the two of them would be like, what's up, man? Are you okay? At least a casual turn in the direction. Well, because in the story he talks about he's with two people, right? Right, who keep walking. So they keep walking, so they don't feel that moment. They're not feeling the scream through nature. It's just him.

So he's sort of the conduit there that is feeling the waves, and they're very straight-lined. Because they don't, yeah, they don't saw what he saw. They didn't saw what he saw. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And Katie, that was a great question before about fires or impact in the sky or something we can go straight into takeaway number two the origins of the scream might involve thomas edison and a mummy and a volcano oh this sounds fun and you said and both times

okay it's either this or it's this or it's this it's like no it's it's yep these things okay okay yeah that seems to be the team this and this is more theoretical it's not coming from the artist but uh we can start with the volcano because that might explain the sky like he might have legitimately seen yeah that was guy that looks this color because of a volcano right and that is a scream through nature like that's absolutely closest one could get to like well yeah the volcano yeah i mean it's a bit more like a burp or something but sure sure sure sure a puke a bit of a puke. It does create. Honestly. I mean, people scream. I would scream if I saw some lava coming at me. Yeah.

Tracks. Man, I just imagined Dante's puke. Anyway, that's all I got. That's all you need. That's it. So, yeah, the volcano, it's the eruption of Krakatoa. And again, Munk, he painted this 1893, but he's right. He's painting a past experience.

And Krakatoa is a volcano in modern Indonesia that erupted in August of 1883. And it was such a massive eruption, it collapsed most of the island it was on. There was a series of global tsunamis that killed tens of thousands of people. Wow. And it changed like cloud cover and sky cover for a lot of the next year in the world. Wow.

Wow. That could do it. I'm reading a series right now called The Fifth Season. It is all about a world like that. It's so good. You've read it. Okay. Yeah.

This whole conversation just made me think of it since, you know. Oh, yeah. Fifth season and, yeah, eruptions and, you know, covering the sky. Yeah. Do you want to describe that fantasy world a little more? I mean, it is – I don't want to spoil things because the beauty of this book is that it's revealed, you know, like you sit in the mystery

of what exactly this world is for a long time and they slowly reveal information. But it is, you know, a post-post-civilization kind of a world where there are these seasons that happen and, you know, just wipe out most of humanity and their father earth is an actual being that is, you know, there's You know, that can take Earth's energy and move rocks and mountains, but they're kind of vilified. Not kind of, they are vilified because people fear them. It's a really wonderful world. I don't want to share too much of it because I think people should read it.

Yeah, I agree. And Kate Jamison is the author. Everybody should check it out. But I'm still working through it. But anyway, yes, volcanic eruptions and the sky turning colors and the effect on people is a big part of this novel. Yeah. And like apocalyptic geology and eruptions. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it's over my head, but I still am enjoying, you know, just concepts that, you know, I mean, it's sci-fi, but it's yeah. A lot of it's overcope magazine, reports collected by the Royal Society in London at the time showed that unusually red twilight glows appeared in Norway from late November 1883 through the middle of February 1884. The Norwegian newspapers also reported it.

Wow. And according to a study led by Donald W. Ol olson a physics and astronomy professor at texas state university munk was probably in that spot the city thinks he was and also was likely looking southwest which would match the like krakatoa red twilights in that winter so he's really just like he just saw okay as stuff in a real experience and painted it that's what happened that's the whole deal yeah so maybe he really tapped into that earth energy and really felt the scream much like the oro genes in the fifth season um that dork um yeah i i mean because when you were reading that description i remembered my first event college san diego the first time I saw a wildfire and it was pretty close and it turned the sky, you know, that color and this everything. And, uh, it's, it's incredibly

trippy. So I can see how seeing a volcanic, the, the effects of a volcanic eruption would be equally impactful. Yeah. I forgot. Most of California has had this general sky experience lately. Like it's, it's just going on lately, but it depends on how close it gets. That was one of the times where I was really very close to the fires and I woke up, I went to bed not knowing that there was a fire at all. And I woke up to it being truly red and this, the sun sun just the most neon color. And all of my posters had curled in on themselves because the window was open and there was ash everywhere. Wow.

And I remember thinking, oh my God, is it too late to find God right now? Oh, no, no, no. But then my roommates had told me that it was just a fire. Not just a fire. It was awful. Anyway. So this volcano is probably part of why the sky looks that way in the painting. The rest of it, especially the figure in it, has to do with Thomas Edison and also a mummy.

Because there's an amazing article in Wired. It's called How Science and Tech Left an Imprint on Three Iconic Paintings. It's by Kelly Grover. And again, this kind of theoretical, like we're trying to figure out why a painter painted what they did. Right. But but there's solid info saying that Munk was living in Paris in 1889 and he was working as an artist there and studying there. And in 1889, Paris had a World's Fair. It was called the Exposition Universelle.

It ran from May all the way to October. It also, this big 1889 Paris World's Fair is why they built the Eiffel Tower. It was supposed to be like a temporary tower for the fair, and then they just kept it because everybody liked it so much. So that's where we got it. Cool. That's neat. Munch also, according to Grover, was very afraid and paranoid about the way technology was going. Because in the 1890s, it's like Edison and Tesla times. They were like, we're going to electrify everything. We're going to do it. And munk in his journals described having dreams about a mysterious shape that everyone feared uh quote directed the wires and held the machinery in his hand like a bunch of spooky i'm afraid of technology stuff is in munk's journals at the time yeah he would hate being alive right now. Yes, you would. Not a Musk fan.

Just hate it. Better believe he would not have a Facebook. That makes sense, though, especially like back then, like seeing like a Tesla coil or something like that. Be like, ah, this is demons. You're summoning demon stuff right now. now yeah even that same year 1893 i guess nikola tesla told the public that power could one day be conducted through the entire world quote to any distance without the use of wires and he said that it is practical to disturb by means of powerful machines the electrostatic conditions of the earth end quote like people at the time were like we will science fiction the planet with the power of electricity and monk didn't like

it was not gonna get it yeah we will shatter the earth with our magic yeah and then the this world expo apparently they had a massive thomas edison exhibit they were like you know who's really cool thomas edison and uh they had more than 500 patented edison products and then the center of it there was this big pedestal and it was a showcase of light bulb technology so it was 20 000 incandescent lamps arranged into the shape of a single giant light bulb oh cool and munk might have seen it and the way the theory goes is if you look at like the face and the head in the middle of the painting that's a light bulb i was gonna like that's what's being represented and is going on that is the shape of a light bulb and not a person's face yeah right yeah oh that's really interesting right it's like secretly interesting very nice to go uh

oh i'm seeing this depiction of that that's really cool i i i would like to see that and not be terrified by it what a cool uh display of light bulbs right like now we have light bulbs everywhere so that would be rad oh cool look at that look at that little art thing all right science and it's art i love it yeah like it seems like yeah just a standard like you go to yeah like a museum or like anything like that like oh yeah this look look what we decided to do for this display i'm just thinking of la county museum of art there are all those light poles out front together it's really cool it's look, look what we decided to do for this display. I'm just thinking of LA County Museum of Art. There are all those light poles out front together. It's really cool. It's nice.

Yeah, that is a really sweet spot that I always forget about. Yeah, we like it. It's nice. Yeah, we know that Monk saw the art at this expo, but he probably couldn't miss also the tens of thousands of freaky light bulbs in the middle right like he had to have seen that i think no that's makes sense he he saw it he got yeah yeah yeah he hated it and then the the other expo thing is they featured an exhibit that was a peruvian mummy like a you know like a dried out body of a mummified person and apparently it was

sort of a face and shape kind of like the the screaming figure in the painting so that is also he was influenced by a mummy from the andes mountains that he saw in life oh yeah it's all these things i agree with all these theories this adds up this this is this is correct in my in my uh uh yeah bad opinion not a mummy expert but so don't at me guys somebody writes in like as someone who's been mummified we're actually a very different color good good to know good to know good to know all right off of that we're going to a short break followed by by the big takeaways. See you in a sec. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers,

Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. fund.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, the JV Club with Janet Varney,

is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney

is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. But then from here, we got one more takeaway that is much less about the content of the painting. Takeaway number three. As far as I can tell, stealing the scream is a very common modern Norwegian activity. Stealing it? Yeah, it's somewhat subjective, but these are multiple stories of people stealing the scream,

and they're really fun. And it seems like people do this in Norway all the time. It's like, what's going on? Just like their national pastime is stealing the scream. There's two main sources for this. one of them is a very interesting book it's called the rescue artist it's by edward dolnick who's a journalist and author that's mainly about a 1994 theft we'll talk about and then there's a bunch of other links about a 2004 theft but in the last 30 years both of the versions made with paint have been stolen cool in a pretty high profile way.

Sounds like we're due for another one, actually. They're lazing about. This could be like an ongoing movie franchise. It's already got several sequels built in. Nice. It's Nick Cage. I'm going to steal the scream, I guess, again. I'm going to steal the scream, I guess, again.

And this first theft, 1994. So the National Gallery in Oslo in Norway had the like original main scream, the 1893 one. It was stolen on February 12th and it wasn't recovered until May 7th. And it was immediately world news because the painting was valued at $72 million. Wait, what was the year again? 1994. And that's actually important because it was a very valuable painting, most famous Norwegian painting. And the other reason it was world news is they stole it on the day of the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway. Oh, wow.

winter olympics in norway oh wow so the whole world press was there and then like over in oslo the most famous paintings getting stolen yeah uh that sounds like uh that was the plot right that's they they organized they they they submit they're like you got to do the olympics here and so like they do they do all the all the things to get the olympics there in order to to do that and then you like go back and now here's the montage of explaining like, Oh, they did this, they did this, they did this just to get there. It's a great movie. It writes itself. Right. They're all at Elliot Gould's house learning how to steal the screen by organizing an Olympics. Exactly. Exactly. Um, filling out all the, all the, all the, all the things they need to to to get the Olympics there.

Brad Pitt snacking on a Danish. This heist is extremely not Ocean's Eleven, and this museum, it turns out, had a hilarious lack of security at all. Two men stole the painting, and it officially took them 50 seconds to get it. What? Less than a minute. Wait them 50 seconds to get it. What? Less than a minute.

Wait, did they just grab it and go? They stole a ladder from a construction site nearby. They put the ladder against a second floor window, broke through the window, took the scream off the wall, slid it down the ladder and left. That was the entire heist. Wow. Maybe wild. That's wild. That's incredibly ballsy. Yeah.

Not a great movie anymore. No. No, it's something different now. I feel like getting the Olympics there would be the exciting part. The end tag, like the post-credits. It's like, oh yeah, and then they steal the scream also. The end tag, like the post credits is like, oh, yeah, and then they steal the scream also. Yeah. Just like gaffers names are going by and then the paintings get taken.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Exactly. Like a scream. Yeah, they they also they like scouted it before they did this. And so they they were so confident the security was bad that they took the painting and they left behind a postcard. The front of the postcard was a picture of three guys laughing very hard. And the back of the postcard they wrote, thanks for the poor security.

Wow. They took that they in their less than a minute heist. They they still had time to, like, make fun of the museum for not doing a good job. As they should. Lesson learned, museum. I support i support that now yeah that's really good the uh just like taking the time to rag on them is uh really it makes it makes it beautiful and the other security issues were that the curators had moved the painting down to the second floor which made it easier to steal bad move the museum had regular windows like it wasn't reinforced or

tough right it's like the window in your house you know and then the painting was just on a wire on a hook on the wall not attached to the alarm system unbelievable even though it's the scream they deserve to get robbed wait it wasn't attached to the alarm system, but there was an alarm system? Yes. Okay. They deserve that postcard. Yeah. And then there were no fingerprints, no footprints.

And also they discovered that the museum security cameras, the museum had security cameras, but the issue was they were so low resolution that they couldn't make out the faces of the not masked burglars at all. They couldn't tell who they were. Amazing. And they also couldn't tell what kind of car the guys left in. They just knew it was a car.

That is so bad. That's embarrassing. So they put out an alert, like, we're looking for a car with four wheels. People. Being driven by people. It was taken by humans. We know that. We do know that.

We do know that. It was driven away in a vehicle of some kind. Yeah, yeah. They stole something. We think it was a painting. We're not sure. But they found it. They caught him.

They got it back. Yeah, so they basically caught it because a really impressive art detective tracked it down. Yes. Ooh. See, here's the movie now. Yeah, yeah. And the story is, it's also a detective. His name is Charlie Hill, and he worked for Scotland Yard in London.

Yeah. And this is not his jurisdiction, but he just felt like doing it. That was his deal. Yes, yes. That's like doing it. That was his deal. Yes, yes. That's like the most written detective I've ever heard of. I see him in a long trench coat. Yeah, yeah.

It's cold. It was a passion, a passion crime for him. It was like, I'm going to solve this because I care. Is he like an art guy or he just cared quite a bit? Yeah, it turns out Scotland Yard, which I have learned is a police force for Greater London. That's all. So they're going way off the territory there. But they had an entire art and antiquities team. And in 20 years of doing this work, Charlie Hill had recovered more than $100 million in stolen art.

He'd gotten Vermeer's, Goya's, tishins like he's a total professional at doing this yeah he's the guy you would go to he's the professional yeah exactly yeah if you if something was stolen and you only knew that they took it in a car you would go to him right and he like, I've got it from here. And you're like, really? Okay. You have any questions for me or no, no, no, no, no. I got this. He solved a lot of cases. It seems like stealing art is a very, it's a real regular thing that happens. Not just from this museum. Yeah. People need to treat their, be better with their art. This book by Edward Dolling. It's very interesting. This is an old stat because it was published in 2005, but he cited an Interpol stat that said the illegal art market is valued at $4 to $6 billion annually.

Whoa. And it's third only behind drugs and weapons. Annually. I guess it's very common to steal nice art. It's like going on all the time. Good to know. common to steal nice art it's like going on all the time good to know number three that's i would not have guessed that yeah yeah uh you you would think it would be anything else not not a thing that i only thought fictional characters did but it's yeah exactly right it's very common it turns out so detective hill is working on this but in the meantime like the theft happens

and basically immediately they start getting fake leads from people who did not steal the painting the strangest one is that the press starts getting cryptic statements from two norwegian priests and the priests names are ludwig nessaessa and Boren Knudsen. And they're famous for having like militant anti-abortion views and getting kicked out of the Church of Norway for pushing it so hard because that's a progressive church, it turns out. But they immediately start hinting to the press that they might have the scream. What? And the press is like, wow, I guess they have it. But then it starts to become pretty clear that it's all just like scammy anti-abortion promotion.

And they told the Norwegian government that they would help return the painting if Norwegian TV aired an anti-abortion documentary nationwide. It was all just a trick. And they didn't have the painting at all. That's so fascinating. What? All right. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. what all right okay okay okay okay okay okay it was like like they heard it got stolen and they were like how do we market anti-abortion views with the art theft i got it yeah just like guys who are like just reading the news every day and be like what can we use for this today what do we what do we how do we how do we grift around about this so they're not great uh but that was part of the story yeah and so they get the fake tip from the priest there's also

another scammer who tells the government they're ransoming the painting for a million dollars that turns out not to be true like there's a lot of fake tips coming in. And in the meantime, Detective Charlie Hill, he's built a whole plan where he is going to pretend to be an American agent working for the Getty Museum. Apparently in the 90s, the Getty was famous for just buying up all of the world's art. And so his idea was, I will try to fake buy the painting from whoever stole it i will fly to oslo with half a million british pounds in a suitcase and then i will like pretend to be in the market to buy the painting and that's the plan that's that ended up working out it's so smart okay so we like put out like uh like feelers in like the black market like in the underground like hey by the way i'm looking for i'm looking for the for the painting and then they just made that connection and that worked that's interesting i mean i guess that's that's a good plan like that's what you would do i mean

it seems like the obvious plan on these guys fell for it right like if you if you've stolen that like maybe don't maybe don't try to sell it right away. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. The thieves were not super smart, but it definitely seems like the goal was to sell the screen for a bunch of money. So they they were willing to take up a guy on this. Yeah.

Yeah. Was it like a spur of the moment thing or had they planned it for a long time? Like they knew the Olympics were coming and they were like, well, we want to steal this so we can sell it so we'll do that and they're like here's the plan was put a freaking ladder up there we'll break the window and take it or was it like more was it more of a not a snap decision that wouldn't make much sense but they were they were art thieves yeah i would say more the premeditated thing and more the definite art thieves thing the the one other step in the robbery was they stole two cars and so they drove away in one switch to the other car somewhere else which is like a smart

yeah yeah assuming the security cameras works that would have really right if they had needed to do that it would have have been helpful. Yeah. But and the other part is there's there's a lot of chaos in nailing the thieves, but the people they ultimately catch are two people working for a guy named Paul Enger. And Paul Enger was famous in Norway already for two reasons. One of them is that he was a professional soccer player. He is retired now, but he was a soccer player. And the other is that in 1988, Paul Enger stole a painting called Vampire made by the artist Edvard Munch. So Norwegians are just doing this all the time. They just love, apparently, stealing Munch artworks.

Specifically that guy. Monkey X, just taking their... They love there they love them yeah yeah they love him it's their guy and it was also the the actual sting was very hard to do because of a bunch of dumb coincidences one of them is that detective hill like meets up with middleman he's like okay i've got somebody who knows somebody who can take me to the thieves. And so he says, hey, middlemen, let's meet up at a hotel. We'll negotiate it here and then figure it out. Hill and the middlemen are at the hotel late into the night and they say, we'll stay here, wake up tomorrow, finish working this out. And then the following morning turns out to be the start of an international convention for anti-narcotics police.

So there are hundreds of policemen milling around the hotel the next day. Wow. And the middlemen are like, this is suspicious to us. We don't want to deal with you anymore. What timing. Total coincidence. Just an accident. Yeah.

Maybe everyone here is cops that's unfortunate yeah uh the other two big bumps are for one thing they they're like okay we'll leave the hotel we'll keep talking somewhere else and then on the way to somewhere else the middlemen get randomly traffic stopped by other police who search their trunk and almost find evidence of the theft. Oh my god. But don't. So that also made them nervous.

Okay. It's a movie again. I'm telling you this is the movie right here. It's not the actual theft which is like the opening scene. Yeah. That's in the first act and then the the last like snafu with it is so charlie hill like studied very hard for this like he memorized where that candle wax splatter is on the real painting and was like very ready

to identify it and so the middlemen bring him to the thieves who have the painting and they like go to show hill the painting but they show him the back side first and hill did not know that when monk painted it he did a really loose rough draft on one side of a canvas and then did the real painting on the other side and so they they showed him the rough draft first and hill almost broke it off because he was like, this is clearly a terrible forgery of the scream. And they were like, no, no, the other side. Oh, OK, got it. So that almost blew it up, too, when he was like, this was a waste of time.

I'm not going to do this anymore. Yeah, I want to see. I want to I want to see how bad the back is that was like just like the like going through all of that and finally it's like just this little sketch of like it's like a stick figure screaming like no it's really it's really this really is and then the the other big theft in 2004 this is uh thieves break into a whole separate museum. There's an entire Munk Museum in Oslo because he willed all his art to the city.

So they break into that museum and steal the 1910 Scream. This theft was, it was around 11 a.m. The museum is open and has visitors in it. And it's much scarier. It's like two masked gunmen. They threaten everybody. They smash and grab that painting and another painting called Madonna by Munch. And according to Smithsonian, witnesses described the Thebes as clumsy, even dropping the paintings on the way out.

And then they got in a getaway car and left. But it was very like Dark Knight bank robbery theft. It was like, I'm angry and violent. Yeah, you got guns and artwork. Things are just fumbling all over the place. The contrast between those two, that's very stark. And yeah, because this story, the only other amazing thing about it is that they did find the thieves about a year and a half later. And then Norwegian police refused to discuss how they found the painting like half a year and a half later and then norwegian police refused to discuss how they found

the painting like half a year after that they just say they found it and they found it we're not clear on why they stole it and there doesn't seem to have been an effort to sell the painting the leading theory is that the art thieves were in an organized crime ring and the crime ring had killed a police officer so the theory is that the crime ring was like we killed a police officer we need to distract people what other crime can we do as a distraction and so they stole the scream from an art museum that's so that's wild like it's just a norwegian behavior like i will steal the scream i guess all right distractions distractions guys that's the name of the game here and madonna apparently was that because like that you'd think like oh they're just like munk fans or something like no no they're

just like they went to that section and they're like yeah take that one too we got it let's pile on yeah yeah that'll do that'll do right. We got it. Let's pile it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll do. That'll do. Right. Yeah, it plays into the distraction theory, because it's like, they had two guys. They got the painting. It was like, well, the other guy's hands are free. Ah, this one. Like, they were smashing glass, and they were just trying to make a scene. Yeah.

Right, right. And yeah, if they're dropping it and stuff, they clearly don't care about keeping it like nice to sell to anybody it's just like yeah take that take that take that they'll talk about it on the news right he liked it when his art got damaged it's fine oh yeah it's true that's true now it's now it's a part of it monk would have been fine with that wow yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i like what you did there. That's what he'd say. You made it better. It's good. Folks, that is the main episode for this week.

My thanks to Cody Johnston and to Katie Stoll for sensing the infinite scream passing through nature with me. We got to be scream pals, you know, screamerinos. Great. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. if you support this show on patreon.com because patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode this week's bonus topic is edvard munk and norway versus the nazis there is a very fascinating alignment between the end of munk's life and World War II. And so we're going to talk about what that meant for him and his country and the world. And there's a lot of happiness in the ending.

Visit SIFpod.fun for that Munkie bonus show, for a library of more than two dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring The Scream with us. Here is one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, Edvard Munch says The Scream happened in real life. Takeaway number two, the origins of The Scream might involve Thomas Edison and a mummy and a volcano. And takeaway number three, as far as I can tell, stealing the scream is a modern Norwegian pastime. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Follow my guests. They're great. Some More News is a YouTube channel and Patreon page made by Cody Johnston, the news dude, and by Katie Stoll and by many collaborators. We're linking that.

We're also linking their podcast, Even More News, which is perfectly titled. That's what you get. It's great. They are the place to go for like smart and funny and correctly critical analysis of our political moment, which has not gotten tremendously easier. Also going to throw in an extra link to the most recent Small Beans podcast episode featuring the character of Dr. Scott Bug, who is portrayed by Cody Johnston and is just one of my favorite comedy things in the entire world. So that's there too. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. And this is a good time to mention I use a lot of books to make this show. Like it's not just Googling. It's a lot of heavy research. And this week in particular, ton of books went into it. There's one called The Rescue Artist. That's by journalist and author

Edward Dolnick. And it tells the amazing story of that 1994 scream of theft and then recovery. Also linking a great graphic novel biography, it's entitled Munk, and it's written and drawn and photographed by Stefan Kverneland. Also linking a Tate Gallery's guide to the life and works of Edvard Munk, that is by art historian Frank Huffet. On top of that, lots of Edvard Munch. That is by art historian Frank Huffett. On top of that, lots of internet sources and links. You can see lots of Munch artworks, including all five

versions of The Scream. Find those in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating.

So how about that? Talk to you then.