Seeing the light: Anna Ancher’s radical Danish impressionism
Sunlight in the Blue Room (1891)
IMAGE COURTESY OF SKAGENS MUSEUM
Skagen became a flourishing artistic community. While most of the incoming (male) practitioners were avowed non-believers, Ancher never shut herself off from the Christian faith.
The night Anna Ancher was born, on 18 August 1859, Hans Christian Andersen was staying in her parents’ home, which was a hotel. Anna’s mother, Ane Brøndum, always saw the presence of the fairy-tale author as a good luck charm for her fifth child: when Anna showed early promise in art, Ane was convinced her daughter was a prodigy. She was correct, as visitors to Anna Ancher: Painting Light at Dulwich Picture Gallery (to 8 March) can currently attest. Ancher spent her whole life based in the fishing town of Skagen, in the far north of Denmark
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