The Scream (ca. 1910) through the Years: from Photographic Documentation to Spatio-Temporal Modelling

Abstract

The Scream (ca. 1910) is one of Edvard Munch's representations of the well-known scene of a man awestruck by the beauty and colors of the sunset over the fjord, painted in oil and tempera on cardboard. Given the age of the artwork, it is expected that its appearance has significantly changed since its creation to the current state. Previous studies found that the yellow and dark red hues that depict the sky are especially sensitive to moisture and light exposure, respectively. In addition, several film photographs were taken of the painting between 1970 and 2003. In this work, we aim to use these photographs in an attempt to model the changes that the artwork withstood, and reconstruct its past appearance. We perform color correction of the photographs, by comparing the unfaded values in the films against reference values in the current version of the painting. To define the reference values, we use the existing knowledge on the highly sensitive areas and other damages that occured to the painting. Finally, we obtain a color transformation function that facilitates the digital rejuvenation of the painting appearance.