Arts and Sport

"Wrestlers" by Thomas Eakins

by Guest Writer Welondon Epyxa 

At first art seems to be limited to music, painting or literature.
But if we see sports as a human activity that creates emotion and beauty, models the human body and personality, we could understand why it is also considered art.

Sports can express all the human feelings and emotions as does the artworks.
Like art, sports bears ethical values either is about the effort harshness, the personality harmony, the sense of justice involved by the rules, or people relationship. 
In the history of universal culture there are many significant moments when sports and arts interfere:

• relief works of the Assyrians, Cretans and Egyptians presented swimmers, fighters and pugilists,
  
• in the Egyptian Pharaoh tombs the murals show swimmers, fighters, runners and fencing scenes,
  
• the Greek ancient athletes statues,
  
• Flemish painting of ice skaters, 
  
• series on canvas transposition of English noble sports,
  
• the 19th and 20th centuries modern illustration of dynamic sporting activities.
  

Some landmarks related to sports in different arts could also be mentioned:
Sculpture

• “Discobolus” of Myron represented a revolutionary moment in sculpture due to the skills of artist to present the dynamic movements.
  
• “David” of Michelangelo and “Perseu” of Benvenuto Cellini are statues of winners.
  

Painting

• In the 19th century the most famous sporting show was the horse racing that we can find well represented in works of great artists such as Daumier, Gericault, Degas or Toulouse-Lautrec. They rendered in their works the movement and the moment strain.
  

Literature
One of the 24 Iliad song is dedicated entirely to an athletic competition.

• The main character of Odyssey, Ulysses is presented swimming, throwing the disc, boxing or making archery.
  
• Spectacular scenes of cycling, boxing or running can be found in the works of famous writers such as: Ernest Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle or George Bernard Shaw.
  
• The extraordinary novel of David Storey, “This Sporting Life” presents the harshness of modern professional rugby. 
  

Music

• One of the first pole vault world champion, the Norwegian Charles Hoff like to training on the fanfare music.
  
• Cuban boxers, Australian swimmers and the American rugby player used to train on jazz music thinking that it activate the energy.
  
• the gymnastics and skating competition programs include a musical side
  

Cinematography

• Johnny Weismuller the famous swimmer and the skater Sonja Henje are heroes of many movies with sport topics.
  
• Many sporting movies were awarded with international prizes: Rocky; The Champ (boxing), Grand Prix (formula one), Escape to victory (football).

One another hand, all time there were people that raised the sports to an art. 
And to convince yourself, look to the performance of any world champion, no matter the sport! The Croatian sports passionate can read awesome sports news in Epyxa and learn more about their favorite players.
More than that, sports means the joy of living and a way to reach your physical and mental limits and this is really an art.

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