Major turning points, personal experiences, and core memories often make its way in an artist’s piece of work one way or another. Take Edvard Munch’s famous piece, ¨The Scream,¨ as an example. Edvard munch, a Norwegian painter, who had a difficult life through his childhood. Edvard’s mother, Laura Munch, passed away from tuberculosis when Edvard was five years old. So Edvard was left with his father, Christian Munch. Edvard said his father, Christian was ¨temperamentally nervous and religiously obsessive – to the point of psychoneurosis.¨ And As Edvard believed that he inherited a ¨seed of madness¨ from his father, Edvard followed up by saying, ¨The angels of fear, sorrow and death stood by my side since the day I was born.”. So since Edvard was a child, he has been through a traumatizing, maddening, and quite sinister surrounding. With all this psychological deception going through Edvard’s mind it only lead to mental anguish. While Edvard was in Berlin then to Paris he decided to try some new art styles. Edvard would use art to cope for this deep anguish and angst he was suffering to deal with. With all this commotion a piece fittingly named, ¨The Scream¨ was developed.

In Edvard’s words, “For several years, I was almost mad. I was stretched to the limit – nature was screaming in my blood. After that, I gave up hope ever of being able to love again,” which perfectly explains why. Major turning points, personal experiences, and core memories often make its way in an artist’s piece one way or another. Because even Edvard Munch was saying ¨nature was screaming in my blood¨ on the inside and as the title ¨The Scream¨ reflects even in exact words why an artist´s life experiences influences the artist´s work.

This is important because it can help psychologists and other people that want to understand how one works. Because if you are able to pick out certain pieces in one’s art you may be able to see who they are, possibly even some background information. But it’s not always as easy as just knowing what something means in someones art. Hell most of the time it’s something completely different. So you’ll have to get personal with the artist, ask questions, take notes, but be curious, don’t pick and prod at someone just try to understand why?

The mind is a crazy thing, sometimes you don’t even know what you’re feeling. But that feeling is still moving through your body. So turn off your mind and let your body take the brush. Because the aftermath of your physical self releasing this symbolic portrait could help you understand what in the world was happening in your mind. Because sometimes we genuinely don’t know what were feeling mentally. But maybe your body could speak for your mind.