Three girls making wreaths near a lake.

Carl Frederik Aagaard's 'Three Girls Making Wreaths near a Lake' (1886) combines the pastoral genre subject (young women engaged in craft work in the natural environment) with the specific Danish landscape of the lake shore. The making of flower or leaf wreaths was among the most traditional of seasonal female activities in European rural culture — the garland as both decoration and ritual object connected the activity to the festive and ceremonial dimensions of rural life. His three girls give the subject a social dimension, the shared activity creating the informal communal gathering.

Aagaard renders the three girls at their wreath-making with attention to both the figures' activity and the lake-shore setting — the girls' absorbed engagement in the craft, the specific plants they gather (whether flowers or leaves, seasonal to the depicted time of year), and the quality of the lake light creating the atmospheric context. His integration of the female figures within the natural setting gives the genre subject its landscape dimension.