This will definitely change the way you look at one of modern world’s most popular works of art. Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s The Scream may have come to represent the anxieties of man, but its origins could be more cosmic and literal. Some astronomers believe that the painting is a depiction of an evening some time in 1883-1884, when the skies changed colour across the world—even as far as Norway—following the eruption of Mt Krakatoa in Indonesia.

The 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano

On Sunday, 26 August 1883, Mount Krakatoa in Indonesia started erupting with massive ferocity. It is considered one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. The eruption was so loud, it was heard nearly 5,000km away—up to Australia in the East and Mauritius to the West. The entire archipelago around Krakatoa collapsed, tsunamis swept the region, rocking ships off the coast of South Africa, and earthquakes were felt even as far as Australia. Over 35,000 people across the world were killed in related incidents.

The eruption of Mt Krakatoa caused a global weather change (if not climate change). Ash plumes blotted the sky jet black over the region, but even across the world—all the way up to North America—the skies were tinted grey-red-black for months.

Some astronomers have surmised that this phenomenon was what inspired The Scream, Edvard Munch’s iconic work of art, which commanded a record $119.9 million (Rs840 crore) at an auction in 2016. In 2004, astro magazine Sky and Telescope reported a study by Donald W Olson, a physics and astronomy professor at Texas State University, and his colleagues Russell L. Doescher and Marilynn S. Olson, connecting The Scream to the eruption.

In a diary, Munch had noted his inspiration thus:

“I was walking along the road with two friends—the sun went down—I felt a gust of melancholy—suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death—as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city—My friends went on—I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I felt a vast infinite scream [tear] through nature.”

The researchers travelled to Oslo, Norway and stood purportedly at the same spot where Munch felt the scream “piercing through nature”. “They determined that Munch and his friends were walking along a road once called Ljabrochausséen, which is now a modern roadway called Mosseveien. It was along the railing of Ljabrochausséen that Munch became overwhelmed with emotion,” says the report (read a summary here).

To be sure, Munch would have painted this from memory, since The Scream materialised in 1893, a full 10 years after the eruption of Krakatoa. Several historians have disputed this theory pointing out not just the gap in dates, but also that Munch was an Expressionist and his inspiration was more likely to come from within than beyond.