Michael Ancher in the context of "Skagen"

A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are associated with specific signs and symptoms. A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. For example, internal dysfunctions of the immune system can produce a variety of different diseases, including various forms of immunodeficiency, hypersensitivity, allergies, and autoimmune disorders.

In humans, disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person affected, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories. Diseases can affect people not only physically but also mentally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter the affected person's perspective on life.

Martinus Christian Wesseltoft Rørbye (Danish: [mɑːˈtsʰiːnus ˈʁɶɐ̯ˌpyˀ]; 17 May 1803 – 29 August 1848) was a Danish painter, known both for genre works and landscapes. He was a central figure of the Golden Age of Danish painting during the first half of the 19th century.

The most traveled of the Danish Golden Age painters, he traveled both north to Norway and Sweden and south to Italy, Greece and Constantinople. He was also the first Danish painter to take to painting in Skagen at the northern top of Jutland, almost half a century before the thriving community of Skagen Painters formed and came to fame, through Michael Ancher, Anna Ancher and P.S. Krøyer.

The Modern Breakthrough (Danish: Det moderne gennembrud; Norwegian: Det moderne gjennombrudd; Swedish: Det moderna genombrottet) was a movement of naturalism and debating literature of Scandinavia which replaced romanticism near the end of the 19th century.

The term "The Modern Breakthrough" is used about the period 1870-1890 in the history of literature in Scandinavia, which in this period had a breakthrough from the rest of Europe. Danish theorist Georg Brandes is often considered to be the "wire-puller" behind the movement, although some of the authors had already begun to write in a realistic style before he formulated the aesthetic paradigm of the movement. His lectures at Copenhagen University starting 1871 and his work Main Currents in 19th Century Literature (Danish: Hovedstrømninger i det 19. Aarhundredes Litteratur) mark the beginning of the period.

The Skagen Painters (Danish: Skagensmalerne) were a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the village of Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. Skagen was a summer destination whose scenic nature, local milieu and social community attracted northern artists to paint en plein air, emulating the French Impressionists—though members of the Skagen colony were also influenced by Realist movements such as the Barbizon school. They broke away from the rather rigid traditions of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, espousing the latest trends that they had learned in Paris. Among the group were Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer, Holger Drachmann, Karl Madsen, Laurits Tuxen, Marie Krøyer, Carl Locher, Viggo Johansen and Thorvald Niss from Denmark, Oscar Björck and Johan Krouthén from Sweden, and Christian Krohg and Eilif Peterssen from Norway. The group gathered together regularly at the Brøndums Hotel.

Skagen, in the very north of Jutland, was the largest fishing community in Denmark, with more than half of its population so engaged. Among the locals, fishermen were by far the most common subject for the Skagen painters. Skagen's long beaches were exploited in the group's landscapes; P.S. Krøyer, one of the best known of the Skagen painters, was inspired by the light of the evening "blue hour", which made the water and sky seem to optically merge. This is captured in one of his most famous paintings, Summer Evening at Skagen Beach – The Artist and his Wife (1899). Although the painters had their own individual styles without any requirement to adhere to a common approach or manifest, one of their common interests was to paint scenes of their own social gatherings, playing cards, celebrating or simply eating together.