Margen
In a corner of the orange sky of The Scream — the 1893 version hanging in Norway's National Museum — there is a tiny sentence written in pencil: 'Can only have been painted by a madman'.
For over a century, people argued whether it was a vandal's insult or something stranger. In 2021, the museum examined the inscription under infrared light, compared the handwriting with letters and diaries, and delivered its verdict: Edvard Munch wrote it himself.
The most accepted explanation: in 1895, during a public discussion of the painting, a medical student suggested its author could not be of sound mind. Munch, haunted by mental illness in his family, carried that wound for years. At some point he returned to the picture and answered in pencil, right there in the sky.
The most anguished painting in history comes with its author's own review built in.