O Sport, you are beauty! You create harmony, you fill movement with rhythm, you make strength gracious, and you lend power to supple things.

(Pierre de Coubertin)

Italian painter Carlo Pellegrini won a gold medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in the mixed painting section of the art competition. During its early years, from 1912 to 1948, art competitions—architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, music—were part of the modern Olympic Games. It was the intention of the Olympic movement founder, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, that the event promote excellence—artistic, as well as physical.

In its original form, 2,500 years ago, artists (painters, poets, musicians, sculptors) competed for Olympic medals and fame alongside athletes. The idea of a healthy mind in a healthy body (promoted initially by Juvenal in the 2nd century AD) was abandoned in the Middle Ages, when the body, harbourer of sins, was relegated and the mind was considered superior. Socially, it began to make more sense to celebrate the intellectual pursuits of the aristocracy and ignore the skill and strength of those who needed to exercise their physical prowess.

Like body and mind, sport and art belong together quite naturally. Many enthusiasts, participants and spectators, enjoy sports for aesthetic reasons. The aesthetic interest we take in sport is closer to our interest in arts, and they both differ from the appeal of natural scenes. Although in most sports the principal motivation is winning, in some disciplines the manner is integral to the result, and marks are awarded for ‘artistic merit’. Conversely, the arts are no stranger to a competitive element; there are literature, music and visual arts prizes at every level. Both art and sport are important forms of dynamic expression, both require the arbitrary selection or creation of difficulties which we aim to overcome.

The art competition was abandoned in 1954, because artists were considered professionals, while the rules of the Olympics required athletes to be amateurs. It was replaced by the Olympic cultural programme, which explores the correlation between art and athletics and their shared values: excellence, social inclusion, team spirit.

The beauty of movement

It is not surprising that the beauty of athletes’ bodies, the spirit of friendly competition, and unity inspired artists ever since the first Olympic Games. From the Athenian painter who decorated Panathenaic vases with running black figures to contemporary sculptors, athletes and sport activities are the subject of many works of art. The choice of sport and the style of presentation are, as always, a reflection of our social and cultural scene.

The statue Discobolus by Myron ‘bent over into the throwing-position, with his head turned back to the hand that holds the discus, and the opposite knee slightly flexed, like one who will spring up again after the throw’ as described by Lucian of Samosata, has become a familiar image thanks to Roman marble reproductions. Myron has captured the nude disc thrower in a fleeting moment of intense concentration and balance; the athlete’s pose, shifting the weight onto one leg indicates imminent movement. The realism and attention to detail makes Discobolus one of the most beautiful examples of classical Greek sculpture.

With the exception of some engravings featuring jousting or an early form of cricket, mediaeval artists did not represent sport; the focus was on religious scenes. Renaissance paintings often featured hunting scenes, especially if the subjects were gods or heroes.

An art bulletin published by the Metropolitan Museum in 1937 records an exhibition of sporting prints and paintings in which about half represent horses and about half ‘show man’s oldest sport—hunting’. Hunting deer and shooting pheasants was an upper-class pursuit, as is nowadays’ controversial fox hunting. Benjamin West’s 1764 The Cricketers looks more like a caricature of 18th-century gentlemen engaged in polite conversation.

The British Sporting Art Trust defines sport art as ‘a genre of art that encompasses country pursuits, predominantly in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries... They document the popular rural sports of the time including fox hunting, game shooting, fishing and horseracing’. It is clear that, given the British social system during that time, the said sports were practised by the aristocracy and landowners. This genre produced a large number of paintings of horses and dogs, few of which were remarkable.

A metaphor for modernity

The 20th century brought a new interest in sport, from artists as from the public in general. The artistic movements that spread across Europe and the US with the speed of an Olympic javelin aimed to distance themselves from the academic rules of art and from the values of a bourgeois society. As well as the form of expression, the choice of subjects changed. Sport, with its wide and popular appeal for participants and spectators, appeared increasingly on canvas on both sides of the Atlantic. Cycling, tennis, swimming, football and other sports became the subject of modern paintings of various styles, from cubism and symbolism to figurative expressionism, in the second half of the century.

We could look at Boccioni’s futurist painting Dynamism of a Soccer Player as puzzle, try to identify among the shapes the other leg, the shoulders; or we could just enjoy the sense of movement, the vibrations created by the light and shades in the painting, feel the dynamism on the canvas.

Robert Delaunay was among the spectators at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Fascinated by athletes, Delaunay produced a series of eight paintings depicting athletes in a race (Runners). As if we were watching live, due to their speed only essential forms and colours are discerned—we see the track, the colours of the runners’ shirts, but not their feet or their faces. The grandstand is divided by vertical lines, the athletes’ shirts have horizontal stripes; the composition conveys a sense of rhythm, of movement.

One hundred years on, back in Paris, the Olympic Games are creating as much expectation and excitement as ever, attracting large crowds and controversy, being written and argued about. Today more people are actively involved in sports (running, swimming, cycling) as leisure than ever before. Sports and the arts, so different yet so connected, continue to evolve in parallel, shining light on each other. This summer, we will all ‘do’ sport. Sport, like art, represents humans’ desire for excellence.