Snow day! Who doesn’t love those words? Here in the northeastern United States, we are currently having a nice snow day, which makes it seem like a perfect time to do the second part of the winter paintings series I started around Christmas time.
While part one was about winter landscapes, part two is about ice skating paintings! Before roughly the beginning of the twentieth century, ice skating was something you could only do in the coldest months. That’s so strange to me, since I skate pretty much every day of the year. Care to look at some old-fashioned ice skating?
Fashion plate (1874) – The fashions may have changed greatly, but catching up on gossip with your friends while skating around in circles is still exactly the same. The caption below the illustration is in German or Dutch, which makes sense given the frosty landscape. I love these elegant and sophisticated dresses, but I wouldn’t want to skate in them.
“Two Ladies Skating in Central Park” (probably early-20th century) by Walter Granville Smith – This looks like fun! Walter Granville Smith was a successful American illustrator and painter. From what I can tell, he specialized in landscapes and paintings of fashionable people at leisure and recreation. It’s nice to see a painting of two women actively skating and enjoying themselves on the ice. I saw quite a few paintings of women sitting in sleds and letting other people push them around on the ice. The sleds were pretty, but I can’t imagine the experience was much fun.
Thank you Pinterest user Solvieg Strand for your really stellar “Vintage ice skating” board that helped me find many of these images. Check it out for lots more, including some old photographs and advertisements. If you like vintage skating, you might also want to read this article and this post from the National Trust for Historic Preservation about historic ice rinks and rinks in converted historic buildings. I’ve only skated in one of the seven. Six more to go!
If this link works this is my favourite. The skating minister by Henry Raeburn. https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&channel=ipad_bm&q=The+Skating+Minister&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLUz9U3MEwvMbdUAjOTinNMDbX4HYtKMotLQvKBdHl-UTYAbDVN4ykAAAA&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm14vo6oPSAhWMIMAKHVFSCR0QxA0IajAT&biw=1024&bih=648#imgrc=_
I love that one, too!
Reblogged this on Janet’s thread.
Skating in that clothing gives me the shudders to think of. Not that I’m much good as a skater even with optimum clothing. The only places it can happen where I live is in skating rinks, so practice is wanting. I have always yearned have opportunities to skate on a vast frozen expanse where it can become as natural as walking.
Agreed about the clothing, but I guess it’s all in what you get used to. I’ve been skating since I was little, but I’ve only been able to skate outdoors a few times. You might enjoy this great video of a girl skating at the top of a mountain in Canada: https://youtu.be/CEE93ppZQ1I . I would love to do something like that, but I strongly suspect that after a lifetime of skating in enclosed rinks, I would get very disoriented.