Moisture, not light, explains why Munch’s ‘The Scream’ is deteriorating
New insight into paint preservation could help “The Scream” show its face in public again. Edvard Munch’s 1910 version of this iconic artwork has rarely been displayed since 2006 because the painting’s cadmium sulfide pigments are so fragile. Cadmium yellow brushstrokes in the sky and central figure have faded to off-white, and thick paint in the lake is flaking off. To prevent further decay, the Munch Museum in Oslo almost always keeps “The Scream” in storage, under carefully controlled lighting and about 50 percent humidity. Now, a chemical analysis of the painting shows that moisture is the main reason for the deterioration, while light plays only a minor role, Letizia Monico, a chemist at the Italian National Research Council in Perugia, and her colleagues report online May 15 in Science Advances. Researchers analyzed microscopic flakes of paint from “The Scream” along with paint samples with similar chemical composition that were artificially aged in the lab. X-ray probes of the paint samples revealed cadmium sulfate, a breakdown product of...