Anna Ancher
Well, today it is the last day of our Twilight Hour. From January 3rd until today every Sunday we presented pieces from the fantastic collection of one of our favorite museums in the world - Skagens Kunstmuseer in Denmark. It 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. Beautiful things.
This time, as it is the second time DailyArt and Skagens Kunstmuseer work together, we want to present four pieces under the theme Twilight Hour. Don't forget to look back at the previously featured masterpieces :)
The little girl kneeling is Anna’s own daughter Helga. While the Ancher’s were not very religious themselves, Helga had read a book, and “wanted to do the same thing as the girl in the story”. Anna said, about this painting, that “the figure isn’t terribly good” and “it is only the colour that I meant something with” - and this again is a good example of Anna Anchers working method. Anna Ancher was the Skagen painter, who went furthest in dissolving the subject in favour of colours, surfaces and the moods and vagaries of light, and many of her works have a completely different mood from that of the naturalistic paintings we typically associate with the Skagen painters. Whether it is one of her several hundred studies of sunlight reflecting on interior walls or one of these evening motifs, Anna Ancher always emphasizes the fact that the painting is primarily a surface of colours. She employed colours and shades as important elements in their own right, while the subject in most of the paintings become less important.