Albert Anker

Anker labored on this late work for several years. He noted in one of his “carnets” : “Samedi après midi 27 Oct 1900 repris le tableau de la Crêche en promenade lâché en 1892 donc après 8 ans !” and in December followed: “Signé le tableau de la Crèche en promenade le mardi 18 Déc. à 2 1/2 h.” The painting of the elementary school, completed in 1900, was Anker’s last multi-figure painting and is, in a certain sense, his legacy. Under the care of a deaconess who is pushing a basket baby carriage, a lively group of children strolls in a relaxed manner across the newly constructed Kirchenfeld Bridge in Bern. Two opposing worlds meet in front of the old cast iron railing of the bridge. The composition is dominated by the figure of the deaconess with the basket baby carriage and by the elegant woman in mourning attire approaching from the right, whose serious appearance contrasts sharply with the gaiety of the children. The woman and street lamp on the right, and the deaconess, the monastery building, and the cathedral on the left are finely balanced with one another. Two audacious boys have obviously escaped supervision, one is climbing the railing to look at the Aare landscape, while the other looks through the bars at the narrow band of hills rising in the background.

A delicate, pale blue sky – rare for Anker – arches over the scene, revealing his knowledge of contemporaneous French landscape painting. The encounter between the carefree group of children and the mourning woman, of which there are also individual studies by Anker, can be interpreted as a reference to the omnipresence of death that may appear in the midst of vibrant life.