Fear, desperation, and death - Painting as an act of self-liberation. For Edvard Munch (1863-1944), painting was an act of self-liberation. His treatments of fear, desperation, and death still exert a powerful visual and psychological effect on modern viewers. Of all Munchs paintings, "The Scream" (1893), representing a figure tortured by horror, is the most well-known-and certainly one of the most expressive. The artist reflected his innermost feelings in his work: "In reality, my art is a free confession, an attempt to clarify to myself my own relation to life..." Although Edvard Munch cannot be clearly identified with any single movement, he is deemed a pioneer of Expressionism.