拍品专文
Michael Ancher was persuaded to visit Skagen in 1874 at the prompting of Karl Madsen, a leading Danish painter and art critic, who had relatives living nearby. As Ida Lehrmann Madsen attests “This would turn out to be an excellent move” (I. L. Madsen, ‘Michael Ancher’ in exh. cat. Michael Ancher and the Women of Skagen, 2018, p. 144).
Ancher set up his studio in the garden of Brøndum’s Gæstgiveri (then an inn, later a hotel), the heart of village life and what would become the heart of the Skagen’s painters' colony. It is during this first trip that Michael met the innkeeper’s daughter, a talented artist called Anna Brøndum. The artistic couple married in 1880. Anna “held a key position in the local artists' colony which took root …. in the 1880s, making Skagen a centre for the development of a new poetic realism in Denmark in the three decades that followed” (M. Bogh et. al., exh. cat. Anna Ancher, Copenhagen, 2020, p. 7).
In 1882, at Ancher’s request, P.S. Krøyer visited the artists’ colony at Skagen on the northern tip of Jutland in Denmark. He became both a frequent visitor and a central figure in the colony. Krøyer’s arrival brought with it a change in subject and style in Ancher’s art. His previous representations of the harsh living conditions of the fishing community, depicted in a heavy realist manner, gave way to more serene subjects and a freedom of expression visible in both Ancher’s brushstrokes and a lighter tone. As such, his change in style encapsulates artistic changes in Denmark at the time, seen within the context of the Modern Breakthrough, “meaning the artists associated with 1880s Modernism, [who] shared the belief that painting should be purely visual in nature, that composition should be banished, and that the art of painting should be unshackled from the notions of idealism and narrative content” (E. Fabritius, ‘Ancher and the Men of the Modern Breakthrough’ in ibid., 2020, p. 163).
Like Krøyer, Ancher became fascinated with the marvellous light playing over Skagen beach and its inhabitants. This was seen on a grand scale in the late 1890s in the near identical works, A Stroll on the Beach (fig. 1) and Summer Atmosphere (fig. 2). As Elisabeth Fabritius attests: “The artist’s source of inspiration is quite obvious: P.S. Krøyer’s evening scene, finished shortly before Ancher began work on his, depicting two other young women, Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer, seen from behind on a summer evening” (E. Fabritus, ‘A Stroll on the Beach and Summer Atmosphere, 1895-7’, in ibid, 2018, p. 69). Here, the soft light infuses the scene and the figure, whose quiet reflective stance echoes the calm of the waves gently rolling on the shore.
Ancher set up his studio in the garden of Brøndum’s Gæstgiveri (then an inn, later a hotel), the heart of village life and what would become the heart of the Skagen’s painters' colony. It is during this first trip that Michael met the innkeeper’s daughter, a talented artist called Anna Brøndum. The artistic couple married in 1880. Anna “held a key position in the local artists' colony which took root …. in the 1880s, making Skagen a centre for the development of a new poetic realism in Denmark in the three decades that followed” (M. Bogh et. al., exh. cat. Anna Ancher, Copenhagen, 2020, p. 7).
In 1882, at Ancher’s request, P.S. Krøyer visited the artists’ colony at Skagen on the northern tip of Jutland in Denmark. He became both a frequent visitor and a central figure in the colony. Krøyer’s arrival brought with it a change in subject and style in Ancher’s art. His previous representations of the harsh living conditions of the fishing community, depicted in a heavy realist manner, gave way to more serene subjects and a freedom of expression visible in both Ancher’s brushstrokes and a lighter tone. As such, his change in style encapsulates artistic changes in Denmark at the time, seen within the context of the Modern Breakthrough, “meaning the artists associated with 1880s Modernism, [who] shared the belief that painting should be purely visual in nature, that composition should be banished, and that the art of painting should be unshackled from the notions of idealism and narrative content” (E. Fabritius, ‘Ancher and the Men of the Modern Breakthrough’ in ibid., 2020, p. 163).
Like Krøyer, Ancher became fascinated with the marvellous light playing over Skagen beach and its inhabitants. This was seen on a grand scale in the late 1890s in the near identical works, A Stroll on the Beach (fig. 1) and Summer Atmosphere (fig. 2). As Elisabeth Fabritius attests: “The artist’s source of inspiration is quite obvious: P.S. Krøyer’s evening scene, finished shortly before Ancher began work on his, depicting two other young women, Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer, seen from behind on a summer evening” (E. Fabritus, ‘A Stroll on the Beach and Summer Atmosphere, 1895-7’, in ibid, 2018, p. 69). Here, the soft light infuses the scene and the figure, whose quiet reflective stance echoes the calm of the waves gently rolling on the shore.