Art

Expressionism is an art movement emphasizing an art style capturing raw, powerful emotions (Strickland 142) in their artworks. The vivid color palette, distorted figures and bold brush strokes characterize the style of Expressionism (142) and one of the artists that best represents this art style is Edvard Munch.
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian artist born on December 12, 1863 to Christian Munch, an army doctor, and Laura Bjolstad he was the second of five siblings. (Prideaux 3) Edvards artistic inclination was influenced by his equally artistic mother (4) and was inherited from the Munch lineage. His relative, Jacob Munch studied under Jean-Louis David, was Norways first neo-classical artist. (4)
Edvards childhood was marked with memories of scarcity in their family, forlorn images of his mother and her slow deterioration until she succumbed to death. (11, 13) Effects of these memories and his unstable mental condition were evident in his paintings and Expressionism had provided him the right atmosphere to convey his childhood recollections and his mental state that were so strong that these thoughts had poured out into his artworks.
Some of Munchs works that are characteristically Expressionist are The Dead Mother and the Child and his well-known piece, The Scream. The Dead Mother and the Child depicts a child clutching her head painted in varying hues of red with an almost formless shape of a woman lying on the bed behind her and other figures of women with faces also undefined. (357)  The painting was Munchs portrayal of his sister Sophie when their mother died, (211) this piece exemplifies the fundamental character of Expressionist painting because Munch effectively captured the fright and dilemma of the child after witnessing her mothers death as well as the deep grief of the women. Munch purposefully employed colors to emphasize the emotions of the grieving women by using shades of grey, the predicament of the child well represented by the red tints and the motionless mother accentuated by using paler colors as well as crude lines that seemingly signify that the form was lifeless. The choice of subject for this painting shows the individuality of the artist since the subject is a recurring memory of her mother that had greatly affected the artist throughout his life.
Relatively, The Scream that features a vaguely shaped figure of a man that appears to be in sheer panic or anxiety set against an orange red and blue background while the cause of the figures intense emotion is unclear. (Bischoff 52) Munch once more utilized colors on this painting to highlight the agitation felt by the figure by applying varying shades of blue, green, red and yellow on the face while using darker hues on the body thus the viewers eyes focuses on the disconcerted face of the figure. The colors used on the background sets off the disquieting figure by reflecting the inner turbulent state happening in the figures mind. Munch was evidently having psychological problems (Prideaux 17, 116) during his artistic career and The Scream reveals his mental state exhibiting the individuality of the artist that created this oeuvre.