Artist unknown
Ice Skating, late 1940s or early1950s
Four-panel screen: color on paper
75 x 119 inches (190.5 x 312.3 cm)
This extraordinary painting by an unknown artist celebrates the new athleticism of modern Japanese women by portraying them at an ice skating rink. Young women are shown in the foreground separated from the rink by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. One figure is seated in a chair lacing her white ice skates while a friend stands near her holding a coat and stylish handbag. On the left, another young lady dangles her ice skates behind her and a friend has just stopped to greet her through the frosted glass. In the distant background, two women are pictured moving across the ice.
Ice-skating was introduced to Sapporo in Hokkaidō, the northernmost island of Japan, during the early Meiji period and quickly spread to Morioka and Sendai in northern Honshū, where the harsh winter was conducive to this sport. After the sport began at Lake Suwa in Nagano prefecture in 1902, Suwa became a “skating mecca” with easy access from the Tokyo and Yokohama metropolitan areas. In 1920, the Japan Skating Association was formed, eventually evolving into the Japan Skating Federation in 1929 to govern all aspects of skating events. With the opening of indoor ice skating rinks during the early 1930s in the major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, the sport gained wide-spread popularity among Japanese urbanites. Figure skating contests in Japan had begun as early as 1922, but the participation of twelve-year-old Inada Etsuko in the Fourth Winter Olympic Games in 1936 as the only female member of a Japanese team raised figure skating to an unprecedented level of national consciousness. After World War II, numerous skating rinks opened one after another starting with the Kōrakuen Ice Palace in Tokyo in 1951.
The fashionable attire of the young women in this painting, as if they are ready to go shopping, suggests a skating rink in the city rather than one in a remote area. The cantilever chair fitted with metal legs and yellow plastic seat points to the post-war period, as does the ladies fashions. The colors of their clothing are largely conservative except for the red accents added by the ribbon and handbag and the chic belt. The bright yellow of the chair also adds another highlight. The extensive shading on the figures’ dresses, particularly of the two on the right, reveals the artist’s firm grasp of Western painting techniques. The most imaginative and daring pictorial element of this work is the inclusion of the glass wall that covers most of the surface of the painting and asserts its two-dimensionality while allowing the expression of spatial depth through its transparency. In addition, the frost on the glass surface and the overall blue-and-grey tonality of the composition successfully conveys the chilly environment of the skating rink. Both in its bold concept and skillful execution, Ice Rink demonstrates the impressive talent of its creator.
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