Abstract:
Edvard Munch is a Norwegian born expressionist painter. His best-known work, The Scream, has become one of the most iconic images of world art. In the late 20th century, he played a great role in German expressionism and the art form that later followed; namely because of the strong mental anguish that was displayed in many of the pieces that he created.

Edvard Munch was born in Norway in 1863, and was raised in Christiania (known as Oslo today). He was related to famous painters and artists in their own right, Jacob Munch (painter), and Peter Munch (historian). Only a few years after he was born, Edvard Munch's mother died of tuberculosis in 1868, and he was raised by his father. Edvard's father suffered from mental illness, and this played a role in the way he and his siblings were raised. Their father raised them with the fears of deep-seated issues, which is part of the reason why the work of Edvard Munch took a deeper tone, and why the artist was known to have so many repressed emotions as he grew up.
A majority of the works which Edvard Munch created, were referred to as the style known as symbolism. This is mainly because of the fact that the paintings he made focused on the internal view of the objects, as opposed to the exterior, and what the eye could see. Symbolist painters believed that art should reflect an emotion or idea rather than represent the natural world in the objective, quasi-scientific manner embodied by Realism and Impressionism.