Reading Comprehension

Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions below.

Some artists painted visions of loveliness that could make anyone smile. Others, like Edvard Munch, created nightmares that could make you scream.

Influential Norwegian painter Edvard Munch is best known for his dark, emotional images. Born in 1863, Munch was raised by his father as his mother died when she was relatively young. A severe man, Munch’s father instilled in his son an intense fear of going to hell. This fear stayed with the artist his entire life. However, illness spread throughout Munch’s family, and his father and three other siblings passed away within a short period.

Munch used thick brushstrokes and deep colours to depict his state of mind. His work was so dark that some even question whether Munch himself had a serious mental illness. His most famous painting, The Scream (1893), portrays a lone figure crying out in anguish on a bridge. Much of Munch’s life was covered by a gloomy shadow of sickness and misery due to his parents’’ and siblings’’ deaths. It was in this state of loneliness and anxiety that he was inspired to paint The Scream. In his discussion of this image, he recalled the “blood-red” sunset he saw as he walked and the fear he felt running through his body. These strong emotions certainly come through and impose a similar feeling on any viewer.

This painting has become a cultural icon that many non-experts are familiar with. It has been stolen twice. Most recently, in August 2004, robbers held guards at a Norwegian museum at gunpoint, making away with The Scream and another Munch painting. The two paintings are worth an estimated $100 million combined. A little over two years to the date of their theft, police recovered both pieces. The paintings only had minor damage. In comparison, the thieves responsible received four- and eight-year sentences behind bars.