Hip Hip Hurrah! Artists' Party at Skagen

Around 1870, growing numbers of Scandinavian (Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish) artists took to visiting Paris to attended the school of Léon Bonnat, the Académie Julian, or the Académie Colarossi. Some of them were also tutored by Jean-Léon Gérôme.

In due course the artists took the idea of the artists' colony back to Scandinavia with them. The most famous of the northern colonies was at Skagen in Denmark.

Hip, Hip, Hurrah! is typical of the work produced by the Skagen Painters; very much in the style of the French Impressionists and Naturalists, it celebrates the play of light in the scene but at the same time it harks back to the tradition of artists of the Danish Golden Age. The composition of this painting was based on a photograph taken in summer 1884. The party was in the garden of the Anchers (husband and wife were both artist) at Skagen. We see the artists raising their champagne glasses in a toast. The motif of movement captured in the male group is nicely complemented by the tranquillity of the seated women and the child.

Have a great party today :)

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