The Edvard Munch Scream Action Figure

“I was out walk­ing with two friends – the sun began to set – sud­den­ly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feel­ing exhaust­ed, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trem­bling with anx­i­ety – and I sensed an end­less scream pass­ing through nature.”― Edvard Munch

That’s how painter Edvard Munch described the dread-filled scene that led him to paint “The Scream” in 1910. As Dr. Noelle Paul­son notes over at Smarthis­to­ry, except for da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Munch’s paint­ing “may be the most icon­ic human fig­ure in the his­to­ry of West­ern art. Its androg­y­nous, skull-shaped head, elon­gat­ed hands, wide eyes, flar­ing nos­trils and ovoid mouth have been engrained in our col­lec­tive cul­tur­al con­scious­ness.”

“The Scream” might also be one of the more fetishized and com­mod­i­fied paint­ings we’ve seen to date. These days, you’ll find “The Scream” on t‑shirts, jig­saw puz­zles, and non-slip jar grip­pers. And, thanks to a Japan­ese com­pa­ny called Good Smile, you can now buy The Scream Action fig­ure. It has pos­able joints, allow­ing you to put the fig­ure into dif­fer­ent pos­es (wit­ness above). Or you can stand it along­side the oth­er art his­to­ry fig­ures in Good Smile’s collection–da Vin­ci’s Vit­ru­vian Man, Rod­in’s The Thinker, and The Venus de Milo. Oh, the fun you could have this week­end.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via io9

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Edvard Munch’s Famous Paint­ing “The Scream” Ani­mat­ed to the Sound of Pink Floyd’s Pri­mal Music

30,000 Works of Art by Edvard Munch & Oth­er Artists Put Online by Norway’s Nation­al Muse­um of Art

Hierony­mus Bosch Fig­urines: Col­lect Sur­re­al Char­ac­ters from Bosch’s Paint­ings & Put Them on Your Book­shelf

Sal­vador Dalí’s 1973 Cook­book Gets Reis­sued: Sur­re­al­ist Art Meets Haute Cui­sine

The Tarot Card Deck Designed by Sal­vador Dalí

Sal­vador Dalí Fig­urines Let You Bring the Artist’s Sur­re­al Paint­ings Into Your Home