UNVEILING "THE SCREAM" BY EDVARD MUNCH: ITERATIVE FUZZY C-MEANS ANALYSIS OF MACRO-XRF MAPPING

"The Scream" by Edvard Munch belonging to the Munch Museum in Oslo has been analyzed using Macro Xray Fluorescence (MA-XRF). The non-invasive imaging technique unveiled the elemental distribution of the inorganic materials of the painting and brought to light the artist's palette. The semi-unsupervised classification of MA-XRF datacube through an iterative Fuzzy C-Means (FCM)- based analysis was applied to shed light on the complex pigment mixture and execution technique used to create the iconic representation of "The Scream". The analysis revealed the relationship between the main pigments and some other distinctive pigments characterized by low XRF intensities, such as cadmium yellows and oranges. The combination of a well-known investigating technique, such as MA-XRF, with the use of advanced algorithms, provided new informative chemical images representing Munch's painting technique.