Munch's »The Scream« – Film Production for Art History TV Series

Art, Camera, Concept – How Basiliscus Film Turns a Masterwork into a Television Experience

For the ten-part TV and web series »Meisterwerke Revisited«, produced by Basiliscus Film on behalf of Deutsche Welle, we travelled to Oslo – to the National Museum, and to one of the most famous and most frequently stolen paintings in the world. What makes »The Scream« an icon? We asked advertising creatives, artists, and art historians – and translated their answers into images.

Edvard Munch's »The Scream« at the National Museum in Oslo

In 1892, an exhibition by the painter Edvard Munch at the Berlin Kunstverein caused a scandal. The works on display – including »The Scream« – were regarded by some members of the association as an anarchist-inspired provocation. They accused the artist of being influenced by the sensualist Impressionists of France – and French influences were strictly taboo in the German Empire at the time. The exhibition was closed. In doing so, it launched the artist's international breakthrough.

In the summer of 2004, the paintings »The Scream« and »Madonna« were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo. On 31 August 2006, Norwegian police recovered both works – torn from their frames. In 2012, one of the four versions of »The Scream« was auctioned in New York for $119.9 million, surpassing Pablo Picasso's »Nude, Green Leaves and Bust« as the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Picasso's work had fetched $106.5 million in 2010.

Today, the masterpiece can be viewed at the National Museum in Oslo.

Series Concept – A Journey Across Europe to the Icons of Art History

Ten paintings that everyone knows. Ten painters and their biographies. Ten masterworks of art history. Cited, reproduced, and received hundreds of thousands of times. In the series »Meisterwerke Revisited«, we travel to Europe's most renowned museums, present their most famous works, and offer a fresh perspective on each one.

What qualities does Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa fulfil to be considered an icon? Or Edvard Munch's »The Scream«? Advertising creatives, designers, artists, and art historians tell us why these old masterworks remain as relevant as ever – and share their own interpretations.

In the ten-part TV series »Meisterwerke Revisited«, Berlin-based film production company Basiliscus Film – commissioned by Deutsche Welle – dedicates each episode to one of ten paintings that have achieved cult status. Our camera team embarked on an in-depth journey across Europe to visit the most celebrated paintings in art history.