Edvard Munch

Studies in World Art, Book 26

As a working critic, I find the most difficult exhibitions to write about are those that combine an evidently important subject with a faintly dispiriting result. The new Edvard Munch show at Tate Modern is a case in point. Munch is undoubtedly a major Modernist artist, a Norwegian cultural icon who was the precursor and to some extent the inventor of what came to be known as Expressionism.

One version of his composition, The Scream, very recently made a record price - $120 million - at a Sotheby’s auction. The auctioneer, Tobias Meyer, said rather smugly, "It is one of the great icons of art in the world and whoever bought it should be congratulated." So much of an icon, in fact, that you can even buy The Scream as a balloon.

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