Three little girls picking blackberries

Hans Andersen Brendekilde's Three Little Girls Picking Blackberries (1885) is characteristic of the Danish Naturalist painter's genre subjects — children in the Danish countryside engaged in the seasonal activities of rural life. Brendekilde was particularly known for his images of rural Danish poverty and peasant hardship, but this blackberry-picking scene is among his more cheerful subjects — children at a pleasurable seasonal task that blends play and work. The Danish rural landscape in summer, with its hedgerows and berry bushes, provides the setting.

Brendekilde renders the three girls with the careful naturalistic observation that characterizes his best genre work. The children's specific physical presence — their ages, individual characters, the unconscious absorption of children focused on a task — is captured through direct observation. His palette is warm and sunlit for this outdoor summer subject. The blackberry bushes and their ripening fruit provide chromatic accents against the overall green of the summer landscape. The handling achieves both individual character and compositional unity among the three figures.