As a new exhibition celebrating the portraits of Edvard Munch opens at London’s National Portrait Gallery, we take a trip to the artist’s home city in Norway

I reach Ekeberg Park at sunset and walk along the muddy paths to find the viewpoint. The late winter sky is like a watercolour: soft blue and grey clouds layer together, with a sweeping gradient of yellow verging from tobacco stain to pale lemon above the distant, bruise-coloured hills. At the viewpoint, I look out over Oslo and listen for a scream.

In 1892, Edvard Munch took a walk in this same park as the sun was setting. Recording the experience in his diary, he wrote that he heard “a great and infinite scream through nature”. The experience became the basis of his most enduring painting.