One of the lesser known but most fascinating aspects of the history of the olympics is that, once upon a time, together with the sports competitions, there were also some art competitions. From 1912 to 1948that is, for seven editions, a group of architects, musicians, writers and artists of various disciplines competed for Olympic medals, making art an integral part of the Olympics. But how did this idea come about, and why were these competitions eliminated from the official program?
The birth of Olympic artistic competitions has a lot to do with the spirit of the Olympics. The founder of the modern version of the Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin (who also founded the IOC – International Olympic Committee), conceived his project for the revival of the Olympics on theideal of ancient Greeceaccording to which art and sport were seen as a perfect combination to achieve harmony, training the body together with the mind. De Coubertin thus tried to create a strong connection between athletes and artists: therefore, art competitions also began to appear in the program, obviously with works dedicated to sport.
The races had their own categories. As with sports, artistic disciplines were divided into 5 main classes: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. These were then divided into specific subcategories: in the case of literature, there were prose, lyric and epic, or, for music, there were orchestral and instrumental, in addition to solo and choral singing competitions; and again, architecture included urban planning and painting also had competitions in drawing and graphic arts, while for sculpture there were competitions in statuary, bas-relief, medals, plaques and medallions.
The idea was first realized at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and lasted until the 1948 edition, held in London. Not without perplexity: how would the best work be evaluated? A“no win” option: if the judges had not been able to determine a winner, in fact, the medals would not have been assignedexcept the bronze medal.
But who were the best in Olympic art? Germany has won the most medals of all: 24, 12 of which were obtained at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin (the ones held during the Nazi era, with a majority German jury). The Italian competitors are second, with 14 medals, and the French artists are third, with 13 awards. The only woman to have won an Olympic title in the art program is the Finnish Aale Tynnifor literature.
The competitions – which also saw the participation of celebrities such as Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf and the famous composer Igor Stravinsky – were not without their events curious. For example, there have been several cases of athletes who have competed both in their disciplines and, years later, in the field of art. Sometimes, even winning: this was the case for the American shooter Walter Winans (awarded for sculpture) and the Hungarian swimmer Alfred Hajos (silver medal for architecture).
Today, art competitions are no longer present: in 1949, a report was presented at the meeting of the Olympic Committee in Rome according to which the competitions should be abolished because, with the participation of professional artists and the sale of works, they went against de Coubertin’s ideal of “democratic amateurism”. After a heated debate, it was thought to continue with the competitions, but by then it was too late for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. The competitions were then replaced by art exhibitionsknown as the Cultural Olympics. And so ended the tradition of Olympic art and the 151 medals awarded up to that point were erased from the count.
However, there have been continuous attempts to reintegrate art: between 2000 and 2004, for example, there were some editions of a IOC Sports and Art Competitionwhose winners received cash prizes, while since 2018 there has been a Olympic Museum which runs the “Olympian Artist” program, which invites Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create and submit new works of art.
