Some work are simply too scary. They need to be responded to. Picasso’s “Guernica”, a howl in opposition to warfare, with crimson paint; Velázquez’s shapely “Rokeby Venus” with a meat cleaver wielded by a cross suffragette; the infuriating smile of the “Mona Lisa” with nearly something (stones, cake, paint, a teacup, soup). And Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” with its swirling reds and blues and its anguished central determine, silently crying out, arms clamped over ears…? With plain elimination.
Pål Enger was by no means positive why he stole it. However the truth was that one minute his ladder was up in opposition to the wall of the Nationwide Gallery in Oslo, slightly below a window he may silently break, and the subsequent he was wedging the portray, value $55m, behind the entrance seat of his automotive. He then drove across the metropolis for hours, questioning what to do subsequent. The sensation was magical, actually electrical: “The Scream” was his. Ever well mannered, he had left a thankyou word.
His theft, which horrified the artwork world and traumatised Norway, had been brewing for no less than six years. He was in jail for half of that, for having stolen one other Munch, “Love and Ache”, from the identical museum in 1988. He had meant to nab “The Scream”, however picked the fallacious window for his ladder. Out of his eager disappointment a greater plan emerged. On February twelfth 1994 the Winter Olympics would open in Lillehammer; the police can be distracted, and he would strike. A pal had been known as in to assist. It will be the right heist.
