Two Girls

During his lifetime, Fritz von Uhde, who is little known today, celebrated spectacular successes with his religious paintings, and enjoyed a fine reputation as a painter of children’s portraits. The Bremen painting Two Girls shows child models who cannot have been Uhde’s own daughters since they were already older by this date. The girls stand hand in hand in a window alcove of the artist’s studio. Whereas the elder girl gazes intently at the viewer, posing consciously, the younger one looks at the floor distractedly. Uhde’s treatment of light and color reveals the strong influence Impressionism had on him during these years. He was less interested in the actual portraits of the girls than in the atmospheric effect of the sunlight falling obliquely from the back wall onto the children, placing their bodies in a shimmering play of light and shade. In broad brushstrokes, Uhde portrays the reflection of the sun on their dresses, capturing the strongly lit hair in a texture composed of small, impastoed lines and spots.