Experts worried about the painting, ’Scream’

OsloTwo people study the painting "Skrik".Photo : Terje Bendiksby / NTB scanpix

International experts are worried that Edvard Munch’s painting,‘Scream’ will crumble.

 

‘Under the microscope, we see the paint crumbling,’ said the National Museum’s painting conservation expert, Thierry Ford,to Dagbladet newspaper. He referred to the first of a total of four versions of ‘Scream’ painted by Munch, from 1893.

Currently, several Japanese and Belgian experts are analysing the painting to find out how to best preserve it. With three different X-ray techniques, they analyse the paint all the way down to the molecular level, wrote the newspaper.

‘It will break down. But this project gives us information so we can reduce the decomposition process,’ said Ford.

Chemist, Geert van der Snickt of the University of Antwerp, has researched Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’. He said to the newspaper that ‘Scream’ is more vulnerable to corrosion than other pictures he has worked with.

‘The picture is unique. The technique is relatively simple. It’s on cardboard.

And it has no varnish. It makes it very vulnerable’, said Van der Snickt.

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today