Michael Ancher
For the next two weeks on Saturdays we will be presenting masterpieces from Skagens Museum in Denmark, which exhibits an extensive collection of works by members of the colony of Skagen Painters who lived and worked in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I hope you're going to love these paintings as much as we do :)
Michael and Anna Ancher were married in 1880, but, unusual for the time, that did not make Anna give up her artistic career. The couple had a daughter, Helga, who grew up to become a painter just like her parents. Michael Ancher is known for his dramatic paintings of Skagen's fishermen and their work at sea. This, however, is a warm, evocative picture which is dominated by the blues and yellows of the summer sky and the field and the figure of Anna, walking calmly. In the background to the far left, you can see The Sand-Covered Church, a late 14th century church just south of Skagen. The church was partially buried by sand from nearby dunes and finally abandoned in 1795, leaving the tower as the only visible part of the original structure. Anna is dressed in a reform dress that was very popular both in the USA and Europe at the end of the 1800s, particularly among artists. From the mid 1880s, reform dresses could be purchased in department stores in Copenhagen. The design of the dress was a move away from restrictive and unhealthy corsets to loose dresses which provided women with more freedom of movement. The picture says a lot about the artist and his wife Anna and their mutually respectful relationship. Michael Ancher places his wife in a fertile landscape in the otherwise very sandy Skagen. She holds her head high, with her gaze towards the horizon, moving forward.