Art and the Olympics
MúzeumCafé 6.
The Olympic Games no longer generate the largest interest around the world – the football world championship and Formula One have both overtaken them in that respect – yet the Olympics can claim some significance beyond sport. They have left a trace on the built environment, have made an impact on culture and have made their mark on everyday life. In ancient Greece festivities were often held in honour of some divinity. Sport did not dominate them as they were generally connected to a religious festival. At the beginning of the Roman era, the Putho, Isthmus and Pan-Athenian games also included public speaking contests. Between 776 B.C. and 393 A.D. sport competitions were held every four years at Olympia, making a total of 292 events. The ancient Olympic Games consisted of four events and were held every 2-4 years, the Pan-Athenian being the most important. After 724 B.C. the champions of contests comprising stadium run, long jump, discus and javelin throwing, wrestling, boxing, chariot race and pancratium received a wreath of olive branches cut from the sacred olive tree with a gold knife. A life-size statue was made of the winners and as a further reward their own cities granted them numerous benefits. The victor of each event was often depicted on vases, which were given to the winners every four years at the Pan-Athenian festival in Athens. The Pan-Athenian amphorae are characteristic – they were made from 566 B.C. to the end of the 2nd century B.C. and depict black figures, with the image of the goddess Pallas Athene carrying a shield and a lance. A contest scene was painted on the other side of the vessel.
The most well-known antique statue is the ‘Discobolos’ by Myron, made originally of bronze in c. 450 B.C. According to the inscription of an antique gem the naked youth Hyakinthos was Apollo’s favourite, though the god mortally wounded him by accident while throwing a discus. Myron’s original hollow cast bronze statue was lost long ago, but more than 20 Roman copies and several gem depictions are known. The only intact copy can be found in the National Museum of Rome. The burial of Patroclus in Homer’s Iliad is one of the first and most noted ancient reports about the sports games. In later times, it was by no means the case that the Olympic Games and Olympia were exclusively connected to sport. For instance, the composer and pianist Ferenc Liszt had the idea of making Weimar the location of a ‘modern intellectual Olympics’. In 1896, ten years after Liszt’s death, the modern Olympic movement began and in the period between 1912 and 1948 intellectual Olympics were also held. The sports historian Dr. Ferenc Mező was the only Hungarian gold medal winner of the intellectual games. In 1896 Hajós Alfréd, dubbed ‘the Hungarian dolphin’, won Hungary’s first two gold medals at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens – in the 100 and 1200 metre swimming contests. He also played in the Hungarian national football team in Vienna on 12 October 1902 and was managing the national eleven in autumn 1906. When he graduated as an architect he gave up the pursuit of active sports. He worked in the o≠ice of architect Ignác Alpár, later with Ödön Lechner and finally he opened his own practice. However, he remained connected with sport as a sports journalist and member of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, and he also won a silver medal (the first prize was not awarded) for his joint stadium design with Dezső Lauber at the Paris Intellectual Olympics in 1924.
The Hajós Alfréd National Swimming Pool in Budapest is his most prominent building, though he also designed the Újpest Megyer Road Stadium and the Millennial sports ground in the capital, sports complexes and swimming pools in the towns of Miskolc, Pápa, Kaposvár and Szeged, as well as the Aranybika Hotel in Debrecen. The Alfréd Hajós Society was established to cherish and promote his material and intellectual legacy. Dr. Földes Éva’s literary work The Source of Youth was awarded the third place in the art competition of the London Olympics in 1948 – the last occasion when intellectual contests were included in the programme.
Cultural events accompanying the 2000 games in Sydney and four years later in Athens, albeit not as an o≠icial part of the Olympics, enjoyed sweeping success. The organizers of the Olympic Games in Beijing this year intend to surpass the hosts of the previous Olympics of the 21st century in this respect and the Chinese capital is preparing to dazzle the world with 20,000 actors, 260 performances and 160 exhibitions.