Art competitions at the Summer Olympics
events held from 1912 to 1948
Art competitions formed part of the modern Olympic Games during its early years, from 1912 to 1948. The competitions were part of the original intention of the Olympic Movement's founder, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. Medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport, divided into five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture, which led to the events' initial moniker of "Pentathlon of the Muses".
The juried art competitions halted after a 1949 decision by the IOC that since the majority of art contestants worked as professional artists, the competitions contradicted the Olympic spirit of amateur competition, which was more strictly enforced for athletes. Art exhibitions replaced the competitions in the following years, and since 1956, host nations have organized Cultural Olympiads at their own discretion.
History
With the founding of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, and the celebration of the first modern Olympic Games, French Baron Pierre de Coubertin saw the fulfillment of his ideals—men being educated in both mind and body, and competing in sport rather than war. One of his other desires was to combine both art and sport, and he thus considered including artistic competition in the Olympic Games.
De Coubertin became the driving force for promoting the arts through the Olympics, and in 1904, he wrote the following in the French newspaper Le Figaro: "The time has come to take the next step, and to restore the Olympiad to its original beauty. In the high times of Olympia, the fine arts were combined harmoniously with the Olympic Games to create their glory. This is to become reality once again."
Support for the art competitions grew, and in May 1906, Baron de Coubertin organised a meeting in Paris for both IOC members and representatives of artists' organisations.
“Art competitions at the Summer Olympics” enters the record as events held from 1912 to 1948. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what competitions, Summer and Olympics can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Art competitions at the Summer Olympics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.