Now let’s get back to screaming
Considering the noisemaker of a painting we’re talking about, the Norwegian cops are staying pretty damn quiet about how they managed to get back Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” on August 31, a full two years after it was snatched in broad daylight from the Munch Museum in Oslo.
Hopefully the jumpy Scandinavian press, now that they’re no longer busy doodling cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, can get to the bottom of this mystery within a mystery. Most likely a ransom was paid, but if so, it only deepens the mythology swarming like irked bees around Eddie’s freaky little canvas.
It is, after all, a potent symbol of the frightfulness of our times (and perhaps of Munch’s a century ago), and it was no small irony that Norwegians treated the theft of this national treasure as as terrorist act.
But for now, at least, all the cops are saying is that they recovered “The Scream” and “The Madonna”, seen above, the other Munch painting stolen with it, in better-than-expected condition, a ragged corner and water damage to the former and some small rips and gouges in the latter, all of which can be repaired.
If “The Scream” — or “Skrik” as it’s known in Norway (literally, “yikes!”) – weren’t such an important symbol, this would have been one zany comedy from start to finish.
See the rest.
