The museum guards were unarmed

Norway's papers are dismayed by the ease with which thieves snatched Edvard Munch's The Scream and another painting from an Oslo gallery on Sunday.

"Almost as easy as robbing a kiosk," says a front-page headline in the national broadsheet Aftenposten.

The fact that the robbery was not very professional, the paper says, "is embarrassing both for the Munch Museum and Oslo".

This theme is echoed in the Trondheim daily Adresseavisen.

"The robbery was simply conducted with handguns, brute force and a getaway car," it says.

"The complicated part is reaping the profits afterwards."

Security

Elsewhere, the papers apportion blame and try to learn lessons for the future.

Some of our national treasures are too poorly protected Dagbladet

A commentary in Aftenposten complains that for years "the will and the ability" to protect important Norwegian artwork has been inadequate.

"This robbery adds to a row of Munch burglaries - the latest episode in a long story about a unique heritage which has fallen victim to the government's denial of responsibility and its negligence," the commentary says.

Oslo's Dagbladet also makes the point that "some of our national treasures are too poorly protected".

But it concedes that securing such objects - while leaving them accessible to the public - is "clearly a difficult task".

Sad for Norway, good publicity for art Bergens Tidende

"Security at our galleries and museums must be reviewed again," the paper concludes.

"This is a major government task. It should not be a free-for-all where brazen thieves can make off this easily with our collective national treasures."

National loss

Bergens Tidende reflects, in turn, on a sense of national loss.

"Sad for Norway, good publicity for art," the paper says.

"The armed robbers got away with two major national artistic icons."

Norwegian art historian Tommy Sorbo told the BBC that the theft of The Scream was "a great blow to Norwegian culture".

"It is like someone walking in and stealing Nelson's Column from London," he says.

He believes the painting has come to symbolise the nation's "primal scream": the coarse, unrefined aspect of Scandinavian identity.

"This painting seems to trigger a spontaneous reaction in those who see it. It is an icon of Norwegian art and identity."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.