Бучацкий В.П., Загайнова М.Н.

Восточно-Казахстанский Государственный технический университет

им. Д.Серикбаева, г.Усть-Каменогорск, Республика Казахстан

Art and Sport in Contemporary Mass Culture

Since ancient times people have been trying to determine the interrelation between art and sport in the system of culture. There have been as many discussions and disputes as many myths. But one thing goes without saying that art and sport take a very important place in esthetic culture.

In the contemporary world art appears to be a multi-layer and heterogeneous phenomenon. Both the character of viewing audience’s ethic needs satisfaction and the means of art activity differ greatly. At present existing art tendency is based on integration of two poles: reality and festivity, imagination and prosiness. Art adopts sport borrowings and oversteps its own boundaries. While extending the boundaries of art by means of esthetic development sport practice is being enriched by new and sometimes untypical elements of different art forms. Such interrelation between different forms of art results in new esthetic objectives that determine their development in the process of conceptualization of different types of sport.

The element of staginess is extremely important for every mass performance especially for a sport one. Competitive moment that is the main point of professional sport enhances its importance but doesn’t exclude artistic and esthetic objectives. Thus sport is included into the sphere of modern art and the question is how it correlates with other art forms. Organic inclusion of sport into the system of contemporary culture represents a qualitatively new esthetic and art phenomenon. Understanding the unanimity of sport and art enables comprehension of further sport development as well as peculiarities of modern art.

Before trying to find similarities between art and sport we have made an attempt to determine their differences. The most evident of them is that sport doesn’t aim to reflect the reality, at least in descriptive manner, as art does.

Another important moment is that the choice of media of expression is different in sport and art. At first sight the motions and gestures that are used in the both may seem similar and someone will say that all of them serve for expression but the aim and the meaning of these expressions will be different. Expression in sport stands for accurate and efficient execution of a physical exercise. Using art elements is stipulated by the necessity to make an impression on audience and referees who assess the demonstration of an athlete. In other words in sport performance priority is given to technical part rather than to artistic impression. Expression in art appears to be delivery of vivid and informative reflection of the reality (sport practice in our case) as well as reflection of the author’s emotional attitude to the creation.

The character of conditions for sport and stage performances differs also. In a sport performance the competitive conditions bring athlete’s actions into focus and he/she is the main subject in contempt of performance’s staginess. In an art performance the staginess is aimed at the audience’s perception. The dominants in both types of performances are wide asunder as pole and pole and drama laws do not work in sport conditions.

The criterion of an athlete’s or an actor’s behavior assessment is rather important. The highest mark is given to a professional athlete for his moderation, equability of mind and concentration. All these characteristics seem ruinous for an actor who is supposed to show emotions, to create a scenic character in the context of drama performance.

Thus, sport and art have many differences in their content, their functions and characteristics of the subject’s activities. Nowadays the opinion that some kinds of sport are equal to art is becoming more and more widespread. Let’s try to determine their points of coincidence.

First of all, it’s necessary to notice that sport and art are always competing with each other for popularity. Their attractiveness is directly dependant on high level of preparedness and esthetic value which determine the content arousing everybody’s interest. Esthetic origin is the consolidating principle that makes both an athlete and an artist act and perform according to the Beauty law using means available only for them. Sport as well as art represents demonstration of emotional, physical and intellectual abilities of a human. Impressive achievements are impossible without outstanding genius and talent as in these two spheres it’s not enough to be just a disciplined doer. This is the world of inventions, experiments, creativeness and intrepidity. And the most important feature for an athlete as well as for an artist is an individual style, personal manner that guarantee identity and result. Looking at an athlete before start or at an actor before coming to stage we notice how they are preparing, organizing themselves, turning away from the outer world and reincarnating. An athlete is trying to catch the rhythm; an actor is trying to live into the character.

Only sport or art performances are able to trigger an emotional reaction, only they give spectators an opportunity to self-identify (in other words, to imagine themselves at the athlete’s or actor’s place). But the most important stair on the way to sport and art integration is their humanism. Both sport and art have the same function – to express contemporary humanistic ideal in sensory and visual images. The first steps in world cognition a child makes by means of art and physical culture i.e. those spheres where Beauty is expressed mostly demonstrably and understandably. From the above reasoning we can make a conclusion that both sport and art appear and develop as human esthetic activity’s varieties.

We have already mentioned that in art esthetic constituent is the main and determining while in sport it is a necessary condition of sport results achievement. But the last observation cannot relate to all kinds of sport because they are inhomogeneous.

In the conclusion we would like to notice that the influence of sport on art is an admitted fact, but scientific researches pay too little attention to art tendencies in sport. Besides, there is enough information about professional Olympic sports but contemporary mass sports as well as innovative means of sport and art integration are neglected.