Edvard Munch nature." He later described the personal anguish behind the painting, "for several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, 'The Scream?' 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." In summing up the painting's effects, author Martha Tedeschi has stated: "Whistler's Mother", Wood's "American Gothic", Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Edvard Munch's "The Scream" have all achieved something that most paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value—have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every
Edvard Munch he painted in 1898. Drachmann was 17 years Munch's senior and a drinking companion at Zum schwarzen Ferkel in 1893–94. In 1894 Drachmann wrote of Munch: "He struggles hard. Good luck with your struggles, lonely Norwegian." During his four years in Berlin, Munch sketched out most of the ideas that would comprise his major work, "The Frieze of Life", first designed for book illustration but later expressed in paintings. He sold little, but made some income from charging entrance fees to view his controversial paintings. Already, Munch was showing a reluctance to part with his paintings, which he termed his