Everyone knows “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. That tormented figure, immersed in a vibrant landscape of anguish, has become a universal icon of expressionism and inner turmoil. But how many know that Munch was much more than that single, famous scream?
The answer to this question is the new major exhibition at Palazzo Bonaparte, which opens its doors to the public tomorrow, in a journey that breaks chronological patterns to explore the emotional and innovative power of the Norwegian artist.
Curated by Patricia Berman, one of the artist's leading experts, in collaboration with Costantino D'Orazio, the exhibition reveals the man behind the myth, the painter who was able to narrate with visionary brushstrokes life, love, death and the obsession for the human soul.
"Munch was a great experimenter," explains Berman. "His prints make him one of the best of the twentieth century and here we wanted to emphasize his way of working, investigating the theme of sight, which was central to him."
The exhibition, in fact, does not only follow a temporal thread, but develops around his deepest fascinations, from psychology to memory, up to the extraordinary use of color . Munch wanted to paint "people who live and love, completely, with the tragedy of loss, the strength of passion, men as animals and the power of women", says Berman. In his paintings there is not only beauty, but also vulnerability, a fierce investigation into the roles of men and women, seen with a modernity that makes them political and erotic at the same time.
The exhibition unfolds over two floors and seven sections, putting Munch in dialogue with the great masters who inspired him, from Van Gogh to Gauguin, from Matisse to the Expressionists of the second half of the twentieth century, who followed his visionary legacy.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, the Lazio Region, the Municipality of Rome, the Royal Norwegian Embassy and the Jubilee 2025 - Dicastery for Evangelization. The main partner is the Fondazione Terzo Pilastro-Internazionale, with Poema.
