Cristina Berna

Ice skating is a fascinating subject for a timeline study of the development of Western art, mainly painting. Not covered here are sculptures, reliefs and similar art forms. Skating scenes were popular in Old Dutch and Flemish paintings due to a period of colder winters known as the Little Ice Age (circa 1550-1700). Artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hendrick Avercamp depicted these frozen waterways as a setting for lively genre paintings.
These works of art captured the social life of the time, showing people of all classes engaged in skating, games like "kolf" (an early form of golf), and other activities on the ice, often with humorous and detailed anecdotes. The language of art changed quite a lot since then even when the subject is rather well defined. This is something completely different compared to skiing in art, covered by the authors in a companion volume - and which although has examples much, much older Sleighs in art which has many more modern artists engaged and is also covered in a separate volume.