Madonna by Edvard Munch. Oil on canvas, 1894-1895.

Well I just learned that a friend of mine reads my blog, so I figured I'd better get off my butt and update this thing so I don't look like a loser. A few exciting things have been going on in the art world lately, but the biggest news has been the return of the stolen Edvard Munch paintings. I wrote a little bit about the missing paintings back in this post. In summary, two of Munch's paintings - one of his paintings of The Scream and one of his versions of Madonna - were stolen from Oslo's Munch Museum on August 22, 2004. In May of this year, three guys with awesome Norwegian names - Bjoern Hoen, 37, Petter Tharaldsen, 37, and Petter Rosenvinge, 34 - were found guilty of stealing the paintings, which still hadn't been recovered. There were some who speculated that Madonna and The Scream had both been burned in order to destroy the evidence. But that would have really sucked. Especially for the thieves. You put in so much effort to pull of a once-in-a-lifetime heist like that, and then you just burn what you stole? I mean, that puts you in the red, what with the money you spent on gas for the getaway car, and the guns to threaten the museum employees, and then the matches to start the fire. That's no way to make a living.

The Scream and Madonna were safely recovered - unburned - just about a week ago, on August 31st. They were slightly damaged - The Scream had taken a hit to one of its corners, and Madonna had some loose paint and a hole in its canvas, but restorers at the museum have said that repairing the paintings shouldn't be a problem. They're back home, and all's well that ends well, though it's not yet certain when they'll be back on display. And the Munch Museum spent about $6.4 million on a security upgrade a little while ago, so hopefully the new bulletproof glass and metal detectors will keep everything safe for the future.

A funny little side-note: After the paintings had been missing for a few months, the city of Oslo offered a $300,000 reward for the return of The Scream. (Madonna really gets the shaft in this story, because to most people, when compared with The Scream it's pretty worthless.) Well just last month an even better reward was offered - Mars, Inc. offered 2 million dark chocolate M&Ms for The Scream's return. According to Mars, that's about 40,000 bags of M&Ms, worth about $22,000 total. M&M's says the offer still stands, should the Oslo police decide to collect on it. I would if I were them - those dark chocolate M&Ms are dang good.

A few links for those who are interested: you can read my previous posts on Munch here and here. Check out the Munch Museum's website for a little more info on the paintings as well as some other Munch artwork. Go to the FBI's Art Theft website to see a list of their Top Ten Art Crimes, and go here to see what the crap dark chocolate M&Ms have to do with The Scream. Here's a hint: