Anxiety

Edvard Munch painted this Anxiety in 1894, a year after The Scream. The composition borrows heavily from that famous work. A crowd of pale, hollow-eyed figures walks toward the viewer along the same Oslo fjord, beneath the same swirling orange and purple sky. But here the horror is collective rather than individual.

The painting measures 94 by 73 centimeters and now hangs at the Munch Museum in Oslo. Munch added this work to his "Frieze of Life" series, a cycle exploring love, anxiety, and death. The title comes from the Norwegian word angst, a term that became central to existentialist philosophy. Two years later, Munch created woodcut and lithograph versions, printing them on colored paper to heighten their emotional impact.

The crowd's dark clothing and blank expressions reflect the artist's ongoing exploration of psychological themes drawn from personal trauma. His sister Sophie had died young, and Munch returned again and again to images of mortality and dread throughout his career.