Edvard Munch, The Scream, (Version I, 1893)
There are still some who believe that the figure in Edvard Munch's most famous picture is the one doing the screaming, but this is to radically misunderstand the truly terrifying aspect of the work. For rather than being the one who cries, the agonized figure is in fact the one who hears the inhuman shriek that comes from existence itself. Thus the German title for the image, given by the artist, Der Schrei der Natur.
Munch elaborates upon this idea in a diary entry made shortly before he produced the first of his four compositions with this title in 1893 and a revised, slightly more poetic rendition of this note is 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 ... my friends walked on, as I stood there trembling with anxiety and sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
I immediately thought of this as news broke that NASA's Voyager I was greeted by a strangely disturbing howl as it entered interstellar space. Scientists tell us that what instruments on board the craft actually detected was the 'sound' of dense plasma waves or ionized gas vibrating and nothing to be concerned about (although they later confessed they found the recordings creepy and somewhat ghostly).
Anyway, it's nice to once more discover life imitating art. And it's interesting to find out that whilst in space no one can hear you scream, in us, space itself can be heard to shriek.
