Edvard Munch paintings, including "The Scream", have universal appeal in addition to their highly personal meaning. Munch's works are now represented in numerous major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. His cabin, "the Happy House", was given to the municipality of Åsgårdstrand in 1944; it serves as a small Munch Museum. The inventory has been maintained exactly as he left it. One version of "The Scream" was stolen from the National Gallery in 1994. In 2004, another version of "The Scream", along with one of "Madonna", was stolen from the Munch Museum in a daring daylight robbery. All were eventually recovered,
The Kiss (Munch painting) darkness, with only a sliver of daylight showing through a window which is mostly covered by a curtain. They hold an embrace as they seemingly merge into one, their faces a single, featureless shape. Art critic Roberta Smith notes that Munch favored "long, somewhat slurpy brush strokes that were more stained than painted". The painting is similar to, though simpler than, another work with the same theme Munch produced in the same period. The Norwegian symbolist artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) had to cope with disease, mental illness, and death in his family, as well as a strict and strongly religious