What it is
A line of pale, staring faces in dark clothes walk toward us on a bridge, under a streaming blood-red sky.
What it represents
Anxiety as a shared, slightly anonymous condition. It is a close cousin of Munch's The Scream, painted in the same place and mood.
The symbolism
The undulating landscape and the sky seem to be vibrating. The crowd is uniform, and no one looks at anyone else. The picture says that anxiety can be loud inside a person while the whole outside world goes by in good order.
Poems and letters beside it
poem
The Raven
Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
Dread that circles and will not leave the room. The pale, staring crowd under Munch's red sky is the same unease made visible.
prose poem
The Buried Life
Matthew Arnold (1852)
The ache of a self that cannot be reached, even by the person living in it. Munch's figures walk together and are each alone.
