Sport and Art

Abstract

The question of connections between sport and art becomes particularly actual: it is related as well with the development of sport itself and its variants, as with its spectacular side which is especially emphasized by the mass media, above all by TV. The analysis if this question shows, at any rate, three aspects. The first — the most controversial: whether sport is art, or not. The second is a problem of sports spectacles and their main components. The third — are artistic questions, appearing in the course of development of contemporary sport. The associating of sport with art, the putting of an identity mark between them, results, to our mind, from the fact, that one magnifies the alleged compositional uniformity of the sports phenomenon and the one of artistic effect. However, firstly, this uniformity is of syntactic character only (arranging, putting together), secondly-semantic (transmission of significant substance) and sigmatic (rela tion to the received subject). The assumptions of sport and art are essen tially different. From this we draw the conclusion to the effect, that one cannot trans fer to sport the laws ruling art and build a sport spectacle according to these laws. The spectacular value is one of the most important conditions making the existence and development of sport possible. It arises on the basis of objective action of sports fights rules of composition, irrespective of whether it is a fight against an opponent, or weight, against speed, or highness. These are the vicissitudes of the fight, its consistency, that make the effect of the compositional structure of sport, the base of its spectacular value. Therefore many of the sports branches demand not only a stage-setting, but simply cannot exist without it. That is just why the rules of aesthetic perception, the rules of stage-setting of sports undertakings are of the same importance in sport as canon in music, or composition in fine arts. Finally, the crucial aspects of cooperation between sport and art appear in connection with the necessity of organization of space and creation of conditions for sports activity. Sport creates ground itself a specific atmosphere — these are various implements, equipment and sports symbols. There takes place a complex entanglement of interests of sport and architecture, of applied and monumental art — this question demands a separate study.