Madman Munch?

Astronomers say the colors in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, was not from his own imagination, but was inspired by the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa.  Its ash cloud affected sunsets for more than a year and Oslo’s local newspaper reported that the phenomenon was widely seen.  The astronomers found the location where the painting was conceived, and determined that Munch was looking in the direction west of Java.

I don’t suspect art critics will change their stance that the painting “depicts not so much an incident or a landscape as a state of mind.”