Wednesdays words

Today was the last day on our wonderful cruise. We were in Skagen Denmark. I did a walking tour of the city. Skagen is an artist community as well as a fishing community. The artist are a wonderful warm group of people who keeping coming especially in summer to Skagen.

We saw many of the old buildings and how the houses evolved from wood structures to plaster to brick. People started with wood structures ( mostly the fishermen) and then as they could they would plaster the wall closest to the beach to prevent the sand from coming thru the cracks. Next the other two walls were done, but the wall that faced inland was left wood. The brick houses in town were built by Ulrik Plesner. The architect Ulrik Plesner (1861-1933) was largely involved in creating a renewal in Danish architecture. His “Jutlandish architecture” became public property across the country, and Plesner-inspired buildings are seen in all regions. However, his greatest works were in Copenhagen, Ringkøbing and not least Skagen, where the House of the Harbour Master is considered to be his absolute most outstanding work. Plesner worked for almost 40 years as Skagen’s leading architect, and he built more than thirty buildings in the Northernmost town of Denmark. Plaster was also used on the roof to hold the roof tiles in place, so that is why there is still white on the red tiles and the houses are yellow in color.

We walked to the Skagen museum and saw wonderful works of art, many from some of the artist that came to the island in the late 1800’s. P S Kroyer painted a beautiful painting of his wife and dog at the waters edge. Also Anna Ancher and her husband Michael lived in Skagen full time. Kroyer painted his wife and Anna walking along the beach at sunset. Anna and Michael were also artists and painted life in the town. Anna’s father owned the hotel and restaurant and many of the artists would paint pictures for him in exchange for room and board. He would place the paintings in the wood walls of the dinning room and around the top of the dinning room were portraits of the artists and authors who would come to Skagen.