ONE MOTIF.
MANY SCREAMS.

What is on view at MUNCH?

The museum says it presents three versions in rotation: a painting, a drawing and a print. One is visible while the others rest in darkness. The display is in Edvard Munch Infinite, on floor 4, according to the official page checked on 1 October 2026.

Use the museum’s live information for your date. This guide cannot tell you which version will be showing when you arrive, or promise that a display arrangement will remain unchanged.

Why the darkness matters

Paper and cardboard are vulnerable to light. Limiting exposure is part of caring for the works. The changing display is a conservation measure, rather than a reason to consider the visible version a substitute for the “real” one.

Instead of watching only for a change in the display, use the encounter you have. Ask what this particular medium lets you notice: the surface, a line, the handling of colour or a strong contrast.

Three things to notice before the selfie

1. The straight line and the unstable world

   Follow the bridge’s diagonal, then the curves in the sky and landscape. One offers a firm direction; the others seem to flow. How does that tension affect the figure?

2. The people who keep walking

   Notice the background figures. Their distance can make the foreground feel isolated. But the image does not tell us exactly what they think or hear.

3. A face that resists a neat identity

   The figure’s simplified features make it hard to pin down a personal story. Describe what is visible before deciding who it represents.

These are interpretive prompts. They are not a single explanation of the work, and they do not establish what Munch meant in every detail.

MUNCH and the National Museum are different

There are versions of The Scream at both institutions. Munch returned to motifs in different media and at different moments. Check the museum, date and material in a caption when comparing images.

The reproduction on this page shows MUNCH’s painted version, usually dated probably 1910. The uncertainty in the date is worth keeping; an approximate date should not become a false certainty in a travel guide.

Leave the icon behind for a moment

After seeing it, choose a work whose title you do not know. Give it the same attention. Compare how a different landscape, an embrace or a burst of light uses line and colour to make a mood.

If you leave remembering one unfamiliar painting as vividly as The Scream, you have widened the visit beyond the image you came to recognise.