There is much to suggest that Ancher was inspired by a French artist when she painted the picture, but unlike their French colleagues, Scandinavian artists do not seem to have been greatly preoccupied with depicting major medical inventions or to have any particular interest in portraying various medical advances.Finsen’s Medical Institute of Light<\/em>, 1903, pastel, 113.9 x 185-2 cm, Frederiksborg. Museum of National History.\n\">2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The doctor in the picture has no name, and indeed Ancher\u2019s work is not a portrait of a specific doctor, but rather of the situation itself \u2013 a vaccination. The subject is unique in Ancher\u2019s oeuvre: she painted no other works with medical themes, and this is also the first and only time that a medical figure appears in her art. In many ways, A Vaccination <\/em>is a rarity, not only in terms of Ancher\u2019s own works, but also in relation to other Scandinavian works from the period. While medical figures can certainly be found in Scandinavian art, only a few other artists from Denmark, Norway and Sweden appear to have tried their hand at a vaccination motif.Vaccination at a School<\/em>, undated, drawing, 290 x 333 mm, SMK – The National Gallery of Denmark; Bengt Nordenberg, A Vaccination in Scania<\/em>, 1861, oil on canvas, 77 x 94 cm, private collection; Friedrich Adolf Hornemann, Rural Vaccination Scene, <\/em>1873, current whereabouts unknown.\n\">3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n But what happens if we stop focusing on Anna Ancher\u2019s painting as an experiment with light and colour, instead considering it in a context which emphasises other depictions of health-promoting initiatives from the era? Taking its point of departure in Anna Ancher\u2019s A Vaccination<\/em> and a study of how the work was received in its own time, as well as of how it is perceived in the most recent research, this article takes a closer look at how advances in public health and in disease prevention were portrayed in Danish art at the end of nineteenth century. I will argue that with her vaccination picture, Anna Ancher inscribes herself in a field that is also preoccupied with depicting children as an essential part of the narrative of public health, reflecting how children, being representatives of the next generation, are extremely important to that narrative.<\/p>\n Recent decades have seen an increasing focus on Vitalism in Scandinavian art, giving rise to exhibitions and research-based publications, but less attention has been paid to how artists have portrayed initiatives to promote public health such as vaccinations, the dispensing of medicines and vitamins and the treatment of diseases.Livskraft. Vitalismen som kunstnerisk impuls 1900-1930<\/em>, exhibition catalogue, Oslo: Munch Museet 2006; Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen and Oelsner, Gertrud (eds.), The Spirit of Vitalism: Health, Beauty and Strength in Danish Art, 1890-1940<\/em>, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2011.\n\">4<\/a><\/sup> Vitalism was greatly preoccupied with the worship and cult of the healthy body, a trait that permeated the discussion of disease and health in the late 1800s. The linguist Sven Halse has described the widespread public health culture at this time as a so-called pragmatic Vitalism, meaning a Vitalism that revolves around practical ideals pertaining to interior design, clothing, child rearing, etc.Kritik<\/em>, vol. 38, no. 182, 2006, 120.\n\">5<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Vitalism can thus also be seen as a revitalisation of not only the individual human being, but of all of society, manifesting in the period\u2019s literature, art, sports, music, science and architecture, but also in the great focus on health and hygiene typical of the late nineteenth century.6<\/a><\/sup> But can works that are not considered part of category of \u2018artistic Vitalism\u2019 \u2013 meaning works that, in the words of Halse, do not focus on the innermost essence of life or are preoccupied with the sun, light, water, youth, and nude tanned bodies, with strengthening the body through physical exercises or staying out in the fresh air and the healthy sunshine \u2013 be described as \u2018pragmatic Vitalism\u2019? Or is something else at stake here? Taking its point of departure in Anna Ancher\u2019s A Vaccination<\/em> and an analysis of the work\u2019s reception history, this article takes a closer look at a selection of Danish works that centre on public health initiatives as their focal point, but which at first glance fall outside the current understanding of artistic Vitalism, investigating whether these works may be categorised as an artistic version of pragmatic Vitalism.<\/p>\n Up until 2013, Anna Ancher\u2019s A Vaccination<\/em> was in private ownership, known only from descriptions in letters, various small-scale studies and a black-and-white photograph, the latter being included in publications such as the first major retrospective about the artist in 1994\/1995.Anna Ancher 1859-1935<\/em>, exhibition catalogue. Nieders\u00e4chissches Landesmuseum, The Hirschsprung Collection and Skagens Museum, Hannover: Nieders\u00e4chissches Landesmuseum 1994, 108.\n\">7<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Even though A Vaccination<\/em> was not part of the exhibition, it still received quite a lot of attention in the catalogue, where it is described as a cheerful image that not only demonstrates Ancher\u2019s interest in medical advances and their positive impact, but also her care for the next generation.8<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0However, the author \u2013 German art historian Heide Grape-Albers \u2013 concludes that the subject has a direct kinship with the period\u2019s depictions of people in waiting rooms, and that the cropping and colour scheme reveals that Ancher was inspired by Norwegian artist Christian Krohg (1852\u20131925).Albertine to See the Police Surgeon<\/em>, 1887, oil on canvas, 210 x 325.4 cm, The National Museum of Norway, Oslo.\n\">9<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0However, Grape-Albers does not place the work within the context of medical science, nor compare the work with other depictions of vaccinations, although this subject (and other depictions of working doctors) had its heyday in the 1880s and 1890s.The Face of Medicine. Visualising medical masculinities in late nineteenth-century Paris<\/em>, Manchester: Manchester University Press 2017, which puts particular emphasis on some of the works exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1887. These include several portraits of doctors and of the latest inventions within medical science.\n\">10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The most recent and as-yet largest retrospective exhibition about the artist, Anna Ancher<\/em>, created and presented at SMK, the Art Museums of Skagen and Lillehammer Kunstmuseum in 2020\u201321, Ancher\u2019s A Vaccination<\/em> is featured as part of the theme \u2018Community\u2019.11<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The category also includes paintings of subjects such as Christmas geese being plucked, women braiding wreaths in anticipation of a royal visit, and paintings showing Anna Ancher\u2019s mother, Ane Br\u00f8ndum (1826\u20131916), with a little girl. Here the focus is on everyday communities, those that arose in the kitchen or in the field as well as on those\u00a0 \u2018[\u2026] showing the different generations together, and finally the communities found between friends\u2019.12<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0According to this classification, the work is about communities, and perhaps it also ties in with the exhibition\u2019s overall aim of showing Anna Ancher as a modern artist who looked towards French avant-garde painting for inspiration while upholding a special focus on light and colour. When presented in Skagen, the work was shown under the collective heading \u2018Everyday Life\u2019, and the overall text on the theme stated, among other things, that \u2018Anna Ancher’s works are essentially depictions of everyday life and social life in Skagen; of people engaged in mundane chores, either alone or with others. Her scenes show how people lived, worked and made the day go by in a small fishing town, but at the same time they also depict a sense of fellowship and community\u2019; the text also mentions that the painting shows a smallpox vaccination taking place.13<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Once again, the picture\u2019s references to medical science receives no mention.<\/p>\n While the painting is included in the catalogue, readers need to leaf\u00a0 through the entire book before finally finding a reproduction and mention of the work.Anna Ancher<\/em>, exhibition catalogue, Copenhagen: SMK Forlag 2020, 216 and 217.\n\">14<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0This is because A Vaccination<\/em> is not addressed in any of the articles in the catalogue; not until the biography is the painting mentioned alongside A Funeral<\/em> and A Field Sermon<\/em> as examples of the major figure compositions created by Ancher after her time in Paris in 1889.I AM ANNA. A homage to Anna Ancher<\/em>, the works were divided into the following themes in the exhibition and catalogue alike: empty interiors, needlework, light, woman’s space, my mother, religious life, the family, blindness, the art of plucking feathers, the Skageners, harvest time, landscape\/towncape. In the exhibition Anna Ancher<\/em> at the National Gallery of Denmark, the Art Museums of Skagen and Lillehammer Kunstmuseer, the theses were: Light, Colour, Simplification, Landscape, Religion, Community, Portrait. Caroline B\u00f8jesen Schmit-Andersen, ‘Anna Ancher 1859–1935’ in Cecilie H\u00f8gsbro \u00d8stergaard (ed.), 2020, 216.\n\">15<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The intention of the exhibition was to pull Anna Ancher out of the context in which she is usually discussed, instead placing her among the leading artists of the time, or, as the catalogue puts it: \u2018The ambition is to lift Anna Ancher out of Skagen, expanding the scope of our outlook from focusing only on the artists\u2019 colony and Naturalism, positing her instead within the other, broader contexts her art so richly deserves\u2019.16<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The wider contexts in which the exhibition\u2019s curators have wanted to place Anna Ancher\u2019s art include French avant-garde movements such as Impressionism, while other sources of inspiration, including Naturalism and Dutch seventeenth-century art, are mentioned only sporadically.17<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0A\u00a0single article in the catalogue argues that Anna Ancher\u2019s preoccupation with light could be seen as a combination of Vitalism\u2019s penchant for the subject, which includes illumination as a carrier of a distinctive spirituality, capable of animating and enlivening a space with its presence.18<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The article is not about A Vaccination<\/em>, and the fact that the work itself was placed on the periphery of the publication supports the thesis that in many ways it falls outside the scope of Ancher\u2019s usual subjects and does not easily fit into the themes often discerned in her works; while she created several paintings with multiple figures depicting the religious life in Skagen, the vaccination lancet is only swung once in Ancher\u2019s entire oeuvre.A Vaccination<\/em>, the works Interior with Clematis<\/em>, 1913 and The New Hunting Boots<\/em>, 1903, both at the Art Museums of Skagen, are also placed in the back of the catalogue.\n\">19<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n We do not know where Anna Ancher got the idea to paint a picture of a vaccination scene, a work which, in terms of size and the number of figures depicted, is surpassed only by her A Funeral<\/em> and A Field Sermon<\/em>. Aside from featuring many figures, all three share the trait of making no reference to a specific situation in the title, nor identifying exactly which event is being shown and where it takes place. In the vaccination picture, Anna Ancher has used her husband Michael Ancher (1849\u20131927) as a model for the doctor, seemingly indifferent to whether her model was in fact a representative of the medical profession [Fig. 2 and Fig. 3].<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The composition of the picture was not given from the beginning: in what must be an early compositional sketch, Anna Ancher has sketched out a very different composition than the one seen in the finished work [Fig. 4]<\/strong>.20<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The sketch shows eight mothers, nine children, and to the left side of the picture is a doctor who, in the finished version, is vaccinating a child sitting on its mother\u2019s lap. Judging from the doctor\u2019s profile, Michael Ancher did not sit for the figure of the doctor in this sketch; instead, the person depicted may be the district physician in Skagen.Jyllands-Posten, <\/em>14 February 1896, ‘Telegram-Nyt’.\n\">21<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In all likelihood, Anna Ancher did the sketch on-site while the vaccinations were taking place, but according to a letter from her mother, Ane Br\u00f8ndum, Ancher was not entirely satisfied with the result, which may explain why she changed the composition in the subsequent sketches [Fig. 5<\/strong>].Anna og Michael Ancher.<\/em> Breve og fotografier<\/em>, vol. 3: 1898–1906, Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Library and Historika 2018, 72.\n\">22<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n A comparison of the two compositional sketches reveals that the most significant change did not concern the number of people in the picture, but rather their placing inside the pictorial space. In the first sketch, the waiting mothers and children are arranged in a fairly uniform band across the picture plane, while the second sketch places all figures, including the doctor, on the right side of the image and introduces variation in the crowd by having some of the mothers stand up while others sit down. This variation is emphasised in two smaller oil sketches, one of which is completely true to the drawn version, except that the oil sketches also act as colour studies [Fig. 6 and Fig. 7]<\/strong>. Another significant change from the first to the second compositional sketch concerns the location of the windows. The first sketch shows only a very loosely sketched window, while the second has two and hints at a third. Windows play quite a significant role in Ancher\u2019s overall oeuvre, often serving to bring in the (sun)light which was, even in Ancher\u2019s own time, duly noticed as one of the most distinctive and important traits of her art. In this context, the windows not only bring light and sunshine into the room, they also have purely practical significance as the doctor needs daylight to be able to perform his work \u2013 in this case a vaccination. I shall return to this point later.<\/p>\n A study of the reviews and press mentions of the works Anna Ancher exhibited in the 1880s and 1890s shows that even at this stage, critics notice what they describe variously as her \u2018sense of light and colour\u2019, \u2018bright, sunny atmosphere\u2019 and her \u2018gift for colour\u2019. Such descriptions are a more or less recurring feature whenever her works are mentioned and\/or reviewed by the critics of her own day.Dagbladet<\/em>, 6 May 1881; Morgenblade<\/em>t, 24 May 1883; Nationaltidende<\/em>, 17 May 1883.\n\">23<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The emphasis on the reproduction of light and colour as well as on Ancher\u2019s (natural) talent remains largely unchanged, and although she also received criticism, negative comments and reviews are in the minority compared to the positive reviews.Aarhus Stifts-Tidende<\/em>, 10 May 1886; Jyllands-Posten<\/em>, 29 May 1893.\n\">24<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0This perception of Anna Ancher\u2019s work is carried over into the general literature on the Skagen painters, but in this context it is more interesting to observe that the reviews are generally strikingly similar regardless of the subject matter of the works, highlighting that the perception of her works did not change much among critics in the late 1800s.At male sit privatliv. Skagensmalernes selviscenes\u00e6ttelse<\/em>, Skagen: Skagens Museum 2005, 43. Hans Dam Christensen points out that a change takes place in literature’s description of Ancher’s works: the earliest writers emphasise her subject matter, while the later literature particularly points to her use of colour and light. I would claim that such an emphasis on the light and colours in her works is already evident in criticism from her own day and age. Hans Dam Christensen, ‘Anna Ancher og den kunsthistoriske litteratur’ in Periskop<\/em>, nr. 1. June, Copenhagen 1993, 12–13 and 20.\n\">25<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Some of the works mentioned in the reviews from the 1880s and 1890s are: A Mother with her Child, Blind Woman, Old Couple Plucking Gulls, Sunshine in the Blind Woman\u2019s Room, Evening Prayers, Sunlight in the Blue Room,\u00a0 A Funeral<\/em>, The Fisherman in his Living Room<\/em> and finally in 1899 A Vaccination<\/em>.<\/p>\n A Vaccination<\/em> was only exhibited once during Anna Ancher\u2019s own day before being sold to the Swedish match manufacturer Lars Johan Frederik L\u00f6wenadler (1854\u20131915).26<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The fact that the work was sold before it had even been exhibited was very unusual for Anna Ancher, so unusual that the fact was reported by the press, which cheerfully added that she had received DKK 7800 for the picture.Lolland-Falsters Folketidende<\/em>, 23 March 1899; Vendsyssel Tidende<\/em>, 24 March 1899.\n\">27<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0But apart from a few newspapers\u2019 focus on the sale of the work, the reviewers generally characterised the work as: exquisite in colour, amusing, enjoyable, superior and successful while describing the subject matter as a Skagen scene with a doctor vaccinating (screaming) local fishermen\u2019s children.Dannebrog<\/em>, 28 March 1899; Jyllandsposten,<\/em> 8 Mayy 1899; Adresseavisen, Kj\u00f8benhavns Adressecomptoirs Efterretninger<\/em>, 22 April 1899; Social-Demokraten<\/em>, 29 March 1899.\n\">28<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0A single reviewer noted, with ghoulish glee, how \u2018[\u2026] blood is dripping from the soft little arms\u2019,Thisted Amts Tidende<\/em>, 11 April 1899.\n\">29<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0while the more wide-ranging societal aspects of the theme were also duly noted: \u2018An amusing trait is the small group of children who have put these strange goings-on behind them, for the first time ever facing the demands of society and the common fate associated therewith\u2019.Den til Forsendelse med de Kongelige Brevposter privilegerede Berlingske Politiske og Avertissementstidende<\/em>, 1 May 1899.\n\">30<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0With this observation, the reviewer is the only one to see anything other than a light-filled and cheerful tale about a doctor carrying out vaccinations. The reviewer points out the social aspect of the subject, regarding the vaccination as an expression of being aware of one\u2019s social responsibility: being vaccinated is a good deed that benefits the community.<\/p>\n Apart from the two reviews mentioned here, the general critique of the vaccination picture does not differ significantly from other reviews of her other late nineteenth-century works. Presumably because Anna Ancher had by then already been categorised as an artist who was more concerned with colour and light than with her subjects. As one reviewer remarked about her works: \u2018These are the same friendly interiors we know from previous years, and as ever a bright, sunny mood pervades them\u2019.Nationaltidende,<\/em> 17 May 1884.\n\">31<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The critics of the time largely agreed that Ancher\u2019s subject matter was subordinate to the colours and to the effect of light on the interior, and thus the approach to Ancher\u2019s art to which the latest retrospective exhibition of Anna Ancher\u2019s works also subscribes would appear to have been already established in her own time. The difference between then and now is that the Danish critics of the late nineteenth century were less aware of various contemporary French sources of inspiration such as the French Impressionists and Symbolists, who are highlighted as significant sources of inspiration for Ancher in the latest exhibition catalogue.32<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The emphasis on colour and light as a distinctive quality of her works is, as has been proven, not a new aspect of her reception, even though the most recent research highlights her use of light and colour in describing her as a modern artist in line with the French Impressionists. Hence, it is hardly surprising that in the most recent retrospective exhibition, A Vaccination<\/em> is placed in the category of scenes from everyday and community life, for how else might one understand a work that differs significantly from her other works in terms of subject matter, but which is also characterised by her use of light and colours?<\/p>\n Scenes featuring a doctor carrying out vaccinations are far from unique in a European perspective: the subject appears among English and French artists as far back as the early nineteenth century as the smallpox vaccine became more widespread among the people of Europe. Accordingly, the subject had been around for approximately 100 years when Ancher chose to paint it, and it was not a controversial theme. The medical profession of nineteenth-century Denmark was not opposed to the smallpox vaccine; only a few sceptical doctors can be found in the Danish debate about the vaccine, which focused mainly on whether it should be mandatory for all Danes or not.En kovending – koppevaccinationen og dens udfordring til det danske samfund omkring 1800,<\/em> Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag 2001, 33.\n\">33<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The smallpox vaccine became widespread in the late eighteenth century, when the English physician Edward Jenner (1749\u20131823) demonstrated that inoculation with cowpox pus directly into the blood offered extremely effective protection against being infected with smallpox, and it was he who immortalised the word \u2018vaccination\u2019 in 1798.The Art of Medicine. Over 2000 Years of Medicine in Our Lives<\/em>, West Sussex: The Ilex Press Limited 2011, 133.\n\">34<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The fact that Jenner infected people with pus from cows was the cause of much debate and all sorts of satirical cartoons, especially in English media. Visually, the scepticism is most clearly expressed in some of the satirical drawings of the time, such as those of English artist James Gillray (1756\u20131815), famed (and infamous) throughout Europe for his political and social visual satire [Fig. 8]<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In Gillray\u2019s drawing, Jenner is in the process of vaccinating a group of people, several of whom have, after receiving the vaccine, acquired extra limbs in the form of cow-like growths. However, Ancher\u2019s work features no aspects of social satire, and the Danish satirical magazines of the time contain no illustrations that are critical of vaccines.Bl\u00e6ksprutten<\/em> and Punch<\/em> have been reviewed in this regard.\n\">35<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In this respect, it would be more relevant to turn one\u2019s attention to France, which she visited in 1885 and again in 1889. In the 1880s, several French artists painted pictures featuring named as well as anonymous doctors carrying out inoculations with various vaccines.A Man Vaccinating a Young Child Held by its Mother, with other Members of the Household Looking on<\/em>, 1807, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 58 cm; Gaston Melingue, Edvard Jenner Vaccinating James Phipps, a Boy of Eight, on May 14, 1796<\/em>, 1879, current whereabouts unknown; Lucien Laurent-Gsell, Rabies Vaccination in Pasteur’s Clinic in Paris<\/em>, (1887), oil on canvas, 250 x 290 cm, Centres national des arts plastique.\n\">36<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0They included Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (1852\u20131929), who in 1882\/83 painted The Vaccination of the Children <\/em>[Fig. 9]<\/strong>, a work which shares several compositional traits with Ancher\u2019s scene [Fig. 10]<\/strong>.The Vaccinaiton <\/em>was also published in the catalogue published in 1883 when it was exhibited at L’Exposition Nationale. F.G. Dumas (ed.), Annuaire illustr\u00e9 des Beaux-Arts et Catalogue illustr\u00e9 de L’Exposition Nationale. Revue Artistique Universelle<\/em>, Paris: Librairie d’Art 1883, 39.\n\">37<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Dagnan-Bouveret\u2019s painting was exhibited in Paris in 1883, and while it was noticed by the reviewers, it elicited less enthusiasm than two other works of his previously exhibited there.The Art Amateur<\/em>, dec. 1883, vol. 10, nr. 1, 9. The Danish critic and artist Karl Madsen also noticed the painting when it was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, but made no comment on the subject matter. Karl Madsen, ‘Indtryk fra Verdensudstillingen’ in Tilskueren,<\/em> vol. 6, 1889, 795-796.\n\">38<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0It is likely that Anna Ancher also saw the work at the Exposition Universelle given that she spent six months in Paris in the spring of 1889 to study, work and view the exhibition.<\/p>\n The early nineteenth century saw the emergence of the first portrayals of smallpox vaccinations painted by French and English artists. A typical trait of the evolution of the theme is that the first works from around 1800 focus mainly on Edward Jenner and his initial experiments conducted on his own family.Edward Jenner Vaccinating a Boy<\/em>, 1884, oil on canvas, 73.1 x 92.7 cm; Wellcome Collection; C. Manigaud after painting by E. Hamman, Edward Jenner vaccinating his son, held by Mrs Jenner<\/em>, coloured engraving, Wellcome Collection;\n\">39<\/a><\/sup> However, examples of more anonymous doctors are also seen, such as in the French artist Louis-L\u00e9opold Boilly\u2019s (1761\u20131845) 1807 painting, which, like so many other works, was reproduced as a print, allowing the works and their depictions of vaccination to reach a wider audience [Fig. 11<\/strong>]. In this way, the artists\u2019 depictions also served, directly or indirectly, as a subtle form of propaganda: they could help nurture the idea of \u200b\u200bthe necessity to have one\u2019s children vaccinated, especially in France where the smallpox vaccination only became mandatory in 1902.<\/p>\n Over the course of the nineteenth century, Jenner\u2019s figure was gradually replaced by anonymous doctors carrying out vaccinations. In these works, the focus no longer falls on the inventor of the pioneering medical invention, but on the act itself: on vaccinating and being vaccinated. The smallpox vaccine was one of the century\u2019s greatest inventions in medical science, and until the chemist Louis Pasteur (1822\u201395) invented a vaccine against rabies in 1885, smallpox was the only vaccine offered in that century. Like so many other professions, the doctors of the period needed daylight to carry out their work, and accordingly one almost always sees the doctor carrying out the vaccinations near a window. This is also the case for Ancher\u2019s doctor: here the light not only serves an artistic function, demonstrating the artist\u2019s skill at depicting dappled light and sunshine falling in through the window onto the floor or wall \u2013 it also serves a practical function. Thus, windows or open doors are staples of the iconography of vaccination scenes.<\/p>\n In Denmark, the vaccine was declared mandatory by law in 1810, and the few known Danish artistic depictions of doctors carrying out vaccinations have several similarities with the English and French versions of the subject, where an unnamed person, typically either a doctor or a clergyman, is carrying out the vaccinations while several people are gathered for the event.40<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0One example is Danish painter Hans Smidth\u2019s (1839\u20131917) drawing Vaccination in a School<\/em>, where the doctor is about to cut the child\u2019s arm with his lancet [Fig. 12<\/strong>]. Here too, the mother is shown sitting with her back to the window so that the light falls onto the little girl being vaccinated, while two children stand outside the window looking in at the proceedings. Vaccination scenes with plenty of figures first appeared around 1800, meaning that Anna Ancher does not add anything new to the theme in terms of its composition. However, instead of the cool daylight found in most vaccination scenes, Ancher has created a scene awash with the bright, glowing sunlight for which she became particularly known in the 1880s and especially in the 1890s. The uncontroversial nature of the subject at the time, coupled with the fact that Ancher flooded the scene in the light for which she was so well known, may be part of the explanation why the painting was not particularly noticed in its own day, even though it is in fact a rather unusual subject in a Danish and Nordic context.<\/p>\n Vaccinations were not the only public health measure depicted by nineteenth-century artists. In France, for example, institutions were built to promote hygiene among mothers: the authorities wished to reduce child mortality and encourage French families to have more children. In the promotions made by the French Republic, artists also played a role, being commissioned to paint depictions of some of the Republic\u2019s public health initiatives. One example is the French artist Henri-Jean-Jules Geoffroy (1853\u20131924), who in the late 1800s was involved in several of the French state\u2019s new hygiene and sanitation measures, helping to educate the French people on such matters.Sick Girls in European Visual Art, Literature, Medical Science and Popular Culture in the Nineteenth Century<\/em>, 7 November 2019, Aarhus University.\n\">41<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In Denmark, the state authorities showed less interest in using art as propaganda to promote a particular cause, so it is no wonder that it is much more difficult to find Danish and Nordic art focusing on these topics. However, a few examples of such works by Danish artists do exist, their themes sharing a certain kinship with Geoffroy\u2019s depictions of French institutions, focusing on children\u2019s health and hygiene.<\/p>\n In the late 1880s and early 1890s, artist Valdemar Irminger (1850\u20131938) painted several works from Kysthospitalet (the Coastal Hospital) in Refsn\u00e6s, an institution originally set up in 1875 for the benefit of children with tuberculosis. The hospital\u2019s main medial officer Vilhelm Schepelern (1844\u20131924) and its inspector Niels Christian Ottesen (1841\u20131902) were both interested in art, and several artists took up residence as Schepelern\u2019s guests. Their numbers included the painters Harald Foss (1843\u20131922), Irminger and Laurits Tuxen (1853\u20131927).Kunst og kunstnere p\u00e5 Kalundborgegnen – lyset, landskabet, historien og relationerne<\/em>, Kalundborg: Kalundborg Kunstforening 2018, 44.\n\">42<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Irminger\u2019s works, which comprise large and small formats alike, focus particularly on the sick children, and just as in Anna Ancher\u2019s vaccination scene both sexes are seen, even though the girls are in the majority in both artists\u2019 works [Fig. 13]<\/strong>. While hydrotherapy conducted in specially designed bathrooms was one of the Kysthospitalet\u2019s foremost remedies, Irminger frequently chose to instead portray the sick children out in the fresh air, often on the beach near the sea.Meddelelse fra Kysthospitalet paa Refsn\u00e6s 1875-1900<\/em>, 5.\n\">43<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0If judged solely by their faces, the children in Irminger\u2019s works do not look particularly sick; instead, the crutches and stretchers found in the majority of his pictures serve as markers of their disease. In the painting of the letter-writing girls, who certainly do not look sick, we also find a crutch in the background [Fig. 14]<\/strong>.The Training Ship Georg Stage by the Kysthospitalet on Refsn\u00e6s<\/em>, 1887, private collection; Hospitals Rounds<\/em> at the Kysthospital,Refsn\u00e6s<\/em>, 1888, Kalundborg Municipality; From the Kysthospitalet on Refsn\u00e6s<\/em>, (c. 1888), Museum S\u00f8nderjylland; The Convalescent,<\/em> 1889, private collection; Writing Letters on a Sunday Morning. From Refsn\u00e6s Children’s Hospital<\/em>, Kunstmuseum Brandts; A Dormitory at Night at the Kysthospitalet<\/em>, 1891; Discharged Patients Returning Home from the Kysthospitalet on Refsn\u00e6s<\/em>, 1891, private collection.\n\">44<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Irminger\u2019s first painting from the Kysthospitalet was exhibited at the juried spring exhibition at Charlottenborg in 1888, and later that year he received the academy\u2019s annual medal for the work, demonstrating that his work received the official stamp of approval for this particular subject.<\/p>\n Tuberculosis was a major public concern at the time, with one-third of all deaths between the ages of 15 to 60 being caused by the disease.https:\/\/dsr.dk\/dshm\/udstillinger\/historien-om-bekaempelsen-af-de-store-epidemier<\/a> Last accessed 2 November 2020.\n\">45<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The importance of fighting tuberculosis was also communicated in the newspapers and magazines of the day, helping to boost support for initiatives such as the establishment of the Kysthospitalet and of sanatoriums.Illustreret Tidende<\/em>, no. 33, vol. 42, 19 May 1901, 515-518.\n\">46<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Constructed with financial aid from private foundations, state grants, various municipalities and institutions as well as private donations, the Kysthospitalet became so popular that in 1880 it had to reject patients because there was no room. The hospital was expanded several times during the 1890s, creating better facilities for patients and staff.Meddelelse fra Kysthospitalet paa Refsn\u00e6s 1875-1900<\/em>, 13-16.\n\">47<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Irminger\u2019s works, several of which were exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, would also have served to promote the place, its surroundings and not least its healing and beneficial societal impact, especially because Irminger\u2019s series of works from the Kysthospitalet also includes a picture of discharged patients driving away in a horse-drawn carriage [Fig. 15]<\/strong>.Discharged Patients Returning Home from the Kysthospitalet on Refsn\u00e6s<\/em>, 1891, the work is now in private ownership and its whereabouts unknown. Only a black and white reproduction of the work is known.\n\">48<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The patients have been healed thanks to their stay, enabling them to leave the Kysthospitalet behind \u2013 without any crutches. The works can be seen as a series that collectively describes life at the Kysthospitalet and the treatment given to the children admitted there. Outside of these works, Irminger\u2019s favourite subject matter was family scenes and landscapes, and he did no other depictions of sick children except for those from the Kysthospitalet. It would appear that his depictions of consumptive children are the only examples in Danish art of an artist portraying the work done at sanatoriums to cure sick children.<\/p>\n The treatment of already ill children was not alone in being reproduced in the visual arts; preventive measures were also committed to canvas. In 1886 Emilie Mundt (1842\u20131922) exhibited the painting From the Orphanage in Istedgade<\/em> [Fig. 16]<\/strong> at Charlottenborg, and five years later the asylum on Blegdamsvej was the subject of a painting by Knud Erik Larsen (1865\u20131922). At first glance, these works are not very obviously about measures to promote public health, but indirectly they tell the story of how private initiatives for the benefit of working-class children and their working parents did not just build on an idea of \u200b\u200btaking the children off the streets and the dangers lurking there, but also extended to taking care of the children\u2019s health.<\/p>\n Mundt\u2019s painting contains all the things that a children\u2019s asylum offered the children being cared for there while their parents were at work: general education, cleanliness, crafts, tending to wounds and physical injuries, nourishing food and lessons. Like the Kysthospitalet in Refsn\u00e6s, the children\u2019s asylums were funded by charity and private donations; they had their own boards and were not subject to state control. Several of them were later converted into kindergartens, but their original purpose was to take care of the physical and spiritual upbringing of children so that their parents could carry out their work outside the home. They also strove to keep children who were left to their own devices during the day away from the streets and from so-called bad influences. The asylums not only looked after the children, but also gave them a meal, milk and vitamins, in addition to which \u2018the children are washed a couple of times a day [\u2026] Those who need it are treated with disinfectants, ointments, cod liver oil, dressings etc.\u2019Kolding B\u00f8rneasyl 1867-1917<\/em>, Kolding: Konrad J\u00f8rgensens Bogtrykkeri 1917, 12.\n\">49<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0All these initiatives aimed at improving their health and making the future generations healthy and strong.<\/p>\n While most reviewers praised Anna Ancher\u2019s vaccination picture for her work with light and shadow, Mundt\u2019s critics were not impressed by her use of colours or light. In fact, one reviewer even described that her technical skill with colour failed to impress, but added that \u2018[\u2026] there is much in this painting that is pretty and healthy, it is greatly to the artist\u2019s credit that she has eschewed the sympathy so easily won among superficial spectators presenting a quantity of \u201clittle dears\u201d\u2019. The same writer notes how one can tell the children\u2019s breeding or descent by their relative strength or weakness.![](\"https:\/\/www.perspectivejournal.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/fig._1.jpg\")
Exhibition history<\/h2>\n
The inception of the work<\/h2>\n
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What the critics said: Exquisite colours, amusing, and cheerful<\/h2>\n
Smallpox and art<\/h2>\n
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Prevention, treatment and cure<\/h2>\n
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