Harvesters 1905

Anna Ancher made this painting, Harvesters, with oil on canvas. The loose brushstrokes of gold and blue suggest a light, summery afternoon. Can't you just feel the heat? Look at the thick impasto of the wheat field. You can almost feel the dry scratchiness of the stalks as the workers trudge through. I imagine Ancher outside, en plein air, trying to capture the moment. I wonder if she sympathized with the laborers, their bodies bent from hours of harvesting. Did she think about what it meant to be a woman artist in a rural community? The way the sky is painted with such soft, pillowy clouds makes me think of other painters like Pissarro who were committed to capturing the nuances of light and atmosphere. There's this connection between artists, this silent conversation that stretches across time and place. You can feel the push and pull, the looking and responding, the ongoing act of trying to make sense of the world through paint.