The series of Scream paintings were created between 1893 and 1910 by Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch. The landscape in the background is a river in Oslo, Norway. The two definitive versions of the Scream were both stolen, one from the National Gallery in 1994 and another from the Munch Museum in 2004. Both have been recovered. A page from his diary describes his inspiration for the image: "I was walking along a path with two friendsthe sun was settingsuddenly the sky turned blood redI paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fencethere was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the citymy friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxietyand I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." -Edvard Munch