The Scream Appears in a Tree Stump in Norway

(Photo: Kjell Marius Mathisen)

The Scream, the most famous painting of Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch, cried out against the eternal horror of everyday existence though a tree stump in Norway. Kjell Marius Mathisen, a man who works in the cultural heritage field for the Oppland county government, spotted it and took this photo.

Mathisen insists that the shape of the rings is "just a coincidence." But Munch himself might disagree. He wrote of the moment which inspired this painting:

I was walking along the road with two friends
The Sun was setting – the Sky turned blood-red.
And I felt a wave of Sadness – I paused
tired to Death – Above the blue-black
Fjord and City Blood and Flaming tongues hovered
My friends walked on – I stayed
behind – quaking with Angst – I
felt the great Scream in Nature

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath