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The Courbetin was not unaware of the problems likely to be encountered. He expected only a limited participation at first and believed that initialy the competitions would draw only those artists who were personally comitted to tha practice of sports. But early his intention was to introduce a cultural aspect to the games with the marriage of muscle and mind that had been evident in ancient olympia.
No doubt the changes occurred since the 1870s had encouraged him. Impressionist and Post -Impressionist painting had paid some attention to sport. The weekend scenes at Argentuil, near Paris, where Parisians enjoyed sailing, rowing, conoeing and swimming, were favourite subjects of Manet, Monet, renoir and Sisley. River scenes continued to attact the Neo-Impressionists and Seurat, their leader, rarely failed to include these sports in his pictures of the Seine.

As the century moved its last quarter many other artists attracted by the athletic contests of all kinds, recorded popular sporting activities, Tennis, foot races and bycicle racing (which was developing froma recreative pursuit into a competitive sport) were specially favoured, Sport as a subject of painting became so popular that an exhibition entitled Sport in Art was mounted at the Georges Petit Gallery in 1885.

De Courbetin must have been aware of these trends, He was also probably familiar with the work of such Post Impressionists as Lautres, whose velodrome pictures included not only the cycle races, from which the designed posters, but also portraitsa of champions such as Zimmerman “Choopy” Warburton, Mickael, Vergen, Bardeu and Fournier. Tristan Bernard, Director of the Velodrome Buffalo and Velodrome de la Seine, was reputedly the inventor of the now universal bell signal for the last lap of race.

De Courbetin hoped that the beauty of sport, which he described so fervently in his poem “Ode to Sport” would bring about the participation of the great artists of the his time, but it was not to be. Started in 1912 the competitions were terminated in 1948.

ART COMPETITIONS IN THE MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES 1912-1948

The 1906 porposals were put into practice at the 1912 Stockholm Games but were discontinued afeter the London Games in 1948. Since the various attempts have been made to re introduce them, Some consider their omission to be a violation of the Olympic Charter, but the prevailing opinion is that exhibitions rather than competitions of art (and not necesasarilyu associated with sport) should be held concurrently with the Games.

Some beleive the competitions to have been ddoomed from the beginning, because they were never integrated with the sports in ways such as, for example, awarding works of art as prozes - a suggestion made by de Courbetin at the 1906 meeting. Others beleive that, by confining the subject to sport, too narrow a field was offered to contemporary Western artists who were exploring styles influeced by Cubism, Futurism, Expresionism and Abstraction, all forms of art in which the subject was subordinated to artistic treatment.

Impressionism has intriduced a new meaning to the nature of art and the twentieth century saw an evolution of forms very different from those of previous centuries. This new art rejected the old styles and the concepts of beauty that had ruled since the Reinassance. It substituted new ideaas, it experimented with Oriental and African aesthetic forms. it explored ideas about the nature of light, the relationship of time and space, the structure of matter and energy, the unconscious minds, the dynamics of form, the kinetic and optical effect of colour and structure and even its own nature as an aspect of culture.

Such paintings as Rugby by Andre Lhote, The Footballers by Albert Gleizes, The Cardiff Team and The Runners by Robert Dalaunay, The Westlers by Jacques Villon, and such a sculpture as Archipenko´s Boxers and The Boxer by Henri Laurens all illustrate how certain “Cubist” principles were applied to “sporting cultures”-

The Dynamism of a Footballer aand The Dynamism of a Cyclist by Umberto Boccioni are the best examples of a Futurist art, and attempt to portray the sensation of dynamism and energy. Boccioni and other members of this group produced many pictures ans sculptures which sought to represent movement and muscular force.

Even expressionist art, which proclaimed the direct rendering of emotions and feelings to be its goal, occasionally turned to sport. Max Beckmann painted Rugby Players, Kirchner painted Ice Hockey Players and Oscar Schlummer used to the stadium itself as a stimulus for his own particular style.

Nor was port excluded from the interpretation of Abstract Art. Willi Baumeister was the most prolific in this genre with many examples of abstract sporting pictures such as The Woman Runner (1927). Also influential was Nicoals de Stael, whose numerous pictures of football include Pac des Princes and Les Grands Footballeurs. These demonstrate how the artist employed colour harmonies and dynamics to convey something akin to the energy of the players.

In the 1960s and 1970s some art forms attemped to relate fine art with popular culture. Like the art of Anciente Greece that exalted beautiful athletes on every day domestic pottery, todays´s Pop art exolts the sportsmen heroes of our time.

A common suggestion as to the failure of the Olympic art competitions was that the artists in those days also had to be amateurs. Coupled with this was the beleif that the value of a prize winning entry would increase enormously in the value. This however, is not borne out by the facts.

The painting that won the gold medal in the 1948 Olympics, The London Amateur Championships (Boxing) by A.R. Thompson, was sold in auction of the Hutchinson Collection for 10 guineas. It is not absolutely clear why possibility of an increase in the value of work should be a valid reason for excluding these competitions when so many athletic victors subsequently capitalise on their success.

THE OLYMPIC ART PROGRAMME AFTER 1948

Since the abandonment of the art competitions the policy adopted by host countries has been to arrange cultural programmes that have included exhibitions of fine art. The omission of such an exhibition at Melbourne 1956 elicited much critical comment - a mistake to made by subsequent Olympiads.

The tendency was, however, to stage exhibitions that demosntrated the art of the host country. But this was not true for Mexico or Munich programmes where the art was internatinal. In Mexico, orchestras, dance groups, artists, dancers and other performers froma a mutitude of nations performed on the Spieltrasse, and other exhibitions, such as that devoted to the Art of Ancient Olympia at the Deutsches Museum were also arranged. Sport in art was displayed in an out-door display of reproductions and a special book was published for the occasion.