Regarded as a formative figure in early twentieth-century European modernism, Walter Spies (1895–1942) is celebrated for the seamless dialogue between European avant-garde and ethnographic observation in his artistic vision. Fascinated by the interplay of folk traditions, film, and Expressionist aesthetics, Spies sought to translate personal experience and observation into a visual language of dreamlike rhythm and poetic narrative. Die Schlittschuhläufer (The Ice Skaters) exemplifies this approach, transforming a nocturnal skating scene into a surreal and introspective study of human movement, atmosphere, and pattern.¹

Painted in 1922, the work belongs to Spies’s pivotal European period, created shortly before his move to Java and later Bali. The painting depicts a moonlit ice rink where elongated figures glide across the frozen surface, their movements both ritualized and ethereal. Dreamlike and introspective, the composition offers one of the rare autobiographical glimpses into the artist’s early visual imagination.²

The scene is dominated by a near-monochrome blue field, punctuated sparingly by whites, blacks, and warm yellow highlights. The restrained palette departs from Impressionist and Post-Impressionist luminosity, producing tonal unity and a subtle cinematic flatness. A warm glow from a cabin at the edge of the ice introduces a gentle counterpoint to the cool night, emphasizing a tension between domestic refuge and the enigmatic expanse of the frozen rink.¹

Formally, the work reflects Spies’s engagement with German Expressionism during his Secession years (1918–1923). Slightly distorted architecture, tilted ground planes, and compressed depth prioritize psychological resonance over naturalistic perspective. These spatial manipulations recall Expressionist stage-like sets and cinematic environments, particularly The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Hans Poelzig’s sets for Der Golem (1920).³ Spies’s close association with F. W. Murnau—whom he assisted informally during the production of Nosferatu (1921–22)—further informs the painting’s dramatic nocturnal lighting, where shadow and glow enhance suspense and introspection.¹

The ornamental treatment of the figures reflects Spies’s immersive experiences during his internment in the Ural Mountains (1915–1918), where he lived among Bashkir and Tartar families. Absorbings their music, decorative arts, and languages, he developed a sensitivity to rhythm and pattern that manifests in the repeated, patterned groupings of skaters. Figures are treated less as individuals than as integral elements of a broader visual cadence, echoing the logic of folk textiles and ornamental motifs.²

At the same t.mes , the softly layered surface and careful glazing suggest engagement with Old Master techniques, reflecting the influence of contemporaries such as Otto Dix, with whom Spies corresponded. This technical discipline deepens the sense of estrangement and poetic tension, while collapsing boundaries between high art, folk art, and mass culture.¹

Compositionally, Die Schlittschuhläufer centers on a group of skaters gliding across the ice, yet the painting’s autobiographical dimension is suggested by the male figure in the left foreground, widely interpreted as a representation of Spies himself. This figure surveys the scene below, embodying the artist’s dual role as participant and witness. The convention of depicting a lone figure in this position has its roots in Flemish painting, notably in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s winter landscapes of ice-skaters. In one well-known print, Skating Outside St George’s Gate (1558), the caption reads, “The Slipperiness of Human Life.”⁴ Perhaps in Spies’s painting, the male figure, casting a seemingly disparaging side-glance with his head turned away, shares a similar reflection on the precariousness of life, reinforcing the introspective and contemplative character of the work.¹

The frontal, stiff figures, simplified facial features, and deliberately unpolished drawing indicate Spies’s engagement with naïve and primitive art, reflecting his admiration for the freedom and directness of Henri Rousseau. The flattened ice plane, the moonlit stillness, and the dreamlike atmosphere evoke Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy (1897), where dream and reality merge seamlessly.²

Meanwhile, the narrative structure of the skating scene, with its patterned figures and ethereal motion, resonates with Marc Chagall’s I and the Village (1911). In this work, memory, folklore, and symbolic motifs transform everyday activity into a poetic allegory, a strategy that Spies adapts to convey the introspective and personal dimension of his own European-period scenes.²

Several compositional features introduced in this work anticipate motifs that recur in Spies’s Balinese paintings: the lone observer contemplating a larger scene, elevated viewpoints, and circular, lyrical arrangements. Die Schlittschuhläufer thus establishes a conceptual bridge between the introspective European period and the panoramic magical realism of his mature Balinese oeuvre.¹

First exhibited at the Hollandsche Kunstenaars Kring annual exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in March–April 1923, the painting is a rare test.mes nt to Spies’s early artistic experimentation. Given the artist’s limited output and unt.mes ly death, European-period works of this quality are scarce. Held in a private collects ion for nearly fifteen years, Die Schlittschuhläufer remains a compelling and intimate expression of Spies’s evolving vision, poised between modernist exploration, poetic introspection, and a search for a more elemental, expressive visual language¹.

¹ Stowell, John. Walter Spies: A Life in Art. Afterhours Books, 2012, pp. 65–67.

² Stowell, John. Walter Spies: A Life in Art. Afterhours Books, 2012, pp. 32–40.

³ Stowell, John. Walter Spies: A Life in Art. Afterhours Books, 2012, pp. 47–49.

⁴ Bruegel, Pieter the Elder. Skating Outside St George’s Gate. 1558.