Edvard Munch is a Norwegian born expressionist painter. His best-known work, The Scream, has become one of the most iconic images of world art. In the late 20th century, he played a great role in German expressionism and the art form that later followed; namely because of the strong mental anguish that was displayed in many of the pieces that he created.

Edvard's father suffered from mental illness, and this played a role in the way he and his siblings were raised. Their father raised them with the fears of deep-seated issues, which is part of the reason why the work of Edvard Munch took a deeper tone, and why the artist was known to have so many repressed emotions as he grew up.

In 1885, Edvard Munch traveled to Paris, and was extremely influenced by Impressionists such as Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, and followed by the post-impressionism artists Vincent van Gogh Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin. In fact, the main style of Munch's work is post-impressionism, and focused on this style.
Many of Munch's works depict life and death scenes, love and terror, and the feeling of loneliness was often a feeling which viewers would note that his work patterns focused on. These emotions were depicted by the contrasting lines, the darker colors, blocks of color, somber tones, and a concise and exaggerated form, which depicted the darker side of the art which he was designing.
Edvard Munch passed away in 1944, in a small town which was just outside of his home town in Oslo. Upon his death, the works which he had created, were not given to family, but they were instead donated to the Norwegian government, and were placed in museums, in shows, and in various local public buildings in Norway.