The Case for Handwork: Balancing Art and Sport in Figure Skating

[TallyT]

There are no hard and fast answers, no 'right' or 'wrong' definitions. I have read or listened to artists, musicians, dancers all saying that this or that particular skate is pure works of art; I have read and listened to sports commentators calling the same performances supreme athletics achievements, and of course there are those who call the same again both art and sport. My own read is that (as I may have said umpteen pages ago) there are one or two skaters per generation, maybe even per decade, who manage to combine the two into something absolutely amazing, they are the ones that the audiences flock to, who become immortal names and will be remembered when most of their competitors (not all, because there are other grounds for fame or infamy of course) are names in a history book.

Which is as it should be.

 

[4everchan]

There are no hard and fast answers, no 'right' or 'wrong' definitions. I have read or listened to artists, musicians, dancers all saying that this or that particular skate is pure works of art; I have read and listened to sports commentators calling the same performances supreme athletics achievements, and of course there are those who call the same again both art and sport. My own read is that (as I may have said umpteen pages ago) there are one or two skaters per generation, maybe even per decade, who manage to combine the two into something absolutely amazing, they are the ones that the audiences flock to, who become immortal names and will be remembered when most of their competitors (not all, because there are other grounds for fame or infamy of course) are names in a history book.

Which is as it should be.

I do not equate popularity (audiences flocking to) with the best artists... otherwise it's like saying that Hollywood's super stars are the best artists... Exposure and mass appeal doesn't necessarily mean the best artists.

 

[Magill]

I do not equate popularity (audiences flocking to) with the best artists... otherwise it's like saying that Hollywood's super stars are the best artists... Exposure and mass appeal doesn't necessarily mean the best artists.

What does? Surely not experts' opinions, either. Just think how many times experts were wrong - and, no, this is not about FS scoring scandals this time , but about recognition of artists over history in arts widely accepted to be arts . Some of those believed to be among the greatest and the most popularly acknowledged today, in their time were dying in poverty and lack of recognition only to be appreciated a generation or two later, while many of those held in highest regard by their contemporary "experts" are long forgotten or not really that highly respected any more by now. OTOH, there were many times when genius was recognized by the public first, with experts initially looking down to it for all sorts of reasons, and reluctantly joining in only later, when the popular admiration seemed not to wither under their criticism. So it seems expert opinions change in time and go with the flow just like the public's do, so...

 

[TallyT]

I do not equate popularity (audiences flocking to) with the best artists... otherwise it's like saying that Hollywood's super stars are the best artists... Exposure and mass appeal doesn't necessarily mean the best artists.

You missed the first part of my post... if other artists, in all different fields, praise the artistry but you (or I, or Judgey McJudgeface) do or don't see it, who's right? Or is it Schrodinger's skater?

 

[TallyT]

recognition of artists over history in arts widely accepted to be arts .

J S Back for one, I believe him the greatest of all time (yes, even above those other two) but boy, did his reputation as a composer take a five for a while...

Also, and increasdingly in the 20th and 21st century, the creativity of common folk started getting recognised. Things that before were seen as trash are now in galleries, and being played by the greatest orchestras.

 

[4everchan]

His name is Bach.... ^^

 

[moonvine]

I’m running from this thread in mortal terror.

 

[gkelly]

well.. then if you want to know, visual arts and the way blades move on the ice have nothing to do with one another, unless you want to call hockey and speed skating visual art too.

I think Mathman is referring in part to this kind of visual art (if you want to call it art ):

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

These are more about the aesthetic impact of the patterns drawn on the ice than about the aesthetics of the skaters' body movement. (Which was a hot topic for discussion in the development of the sport in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.)

Hockey skaters and speed skaters can't do this, nor most young figure skaters today.


If gliding across the ice with speed and flow and perhaps "beauty" to the body positions can be considered aesthetically pleasing and therefore art on its own merit, then yes, hockey and speed skaters can achieve that, and also good figure skaters just warming up or skating edge exercises.

So then we come back to the question of "What is art?" and how does it relate to "What is beauty?"

Can movement be beautiful without being art? Can it be art without being beautiful?

 

[Mathman]

I recently visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally I took a bee line to the pottery exhibits. After that I checked out the jewelry department. The curator seemed so proud of his acquistions. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't art.

 

[4everchan]

I think Mathman is referring in part to this kind of visual art (if you want to call it art ):

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

These are more about the aesthetic impact of the patterns drawn on the ice than about the aesthetics of the skaters' body movement. (Which was a hot topic for discussion in the development of the sport in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.)

Hockey skaters and speed skaters can't do this, nor most young figure skaters today.


If gliding across the ice with speed and flow and perhaps "beauty" to the body positions can be considered aesthetically pleasing and therefore art on its own merit, then yes, hockey and speed skaters can achieve that, and also good figure skaters just warming up or skating edge exercises.

So then we come back to the question of "What is art?" and how does it relate to "What is beauty?"

Can movement be beautiful without being art? Can it be art without being beautiful?

beautiful , I will leave it at that and yes art and beauty do not necessarily go together.

 

[4everchan]

I recently visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally I took a bee line to the pottery exhibits. After that I checked out the jewelry department. The curator seemed so proud of his acquistions. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't art.

Museums contain a lot of things... not limited to art. Museums also keep historical crafts.

 

[Weathergal]

I recently visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally I took a bee line to the pottery exhibits. After that I checked out the jewelry department. The curator seemed so proud of his acquistions. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't art.

Great art museum to visit! If you haven't already, you should also visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Amazing collection and really cool to see the art as it was displayed in a house vs. a "generic museum wall."

 

[Mathman]

Museums contain a lot of things... not limited to art. Museums also keep historical crafts.

So true, so true. But this was the Museum of FINE ARTS.

The museums in my home town feature mostly Indian blankets and pioneer farm tools. My great grandmother's spinning wheel that she brought form Norway (together only with the clothes on her back) is on display in one.

 

[4everchan]

So true, so true. But this was the Museum of FINE ARTS.

The museums in my home town feature mostly Indian blankets and pioneer farm tools. My great grandmother's spinning wheel that she brought form Norway (together only with the clothes on her back) is on display in one.

The Louvre has a bunch of jewels from monarchs... Yet the Mona Lisa lives there...

 

[TallyT]

His name is Bach.... ^^

Damnit, that was my fourth typo yesterday. And at least two were in my studies and may cost me

 

[TallyT]

I recently visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Naturally I took a bee line to the pottery exhibits. After that I checked out the jewelry department. The curator seemed so proud of his acquistions. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't art.

That was the museum that did the Hokusai and Great Wave exhibition in July, with his prints and a whole host of homages, riffs (including one in Lego), paintings, photos (one of Yuzuru from AERA magazine which is of course how I know of it but I'd have loved to see the whole thing), and works inspired by it. I admit, I adore riffs on the Great Wave and have collected quite a few, both the serious and fun ones, from online. I doubt anyone would seriously dispute the fact that the original woodblock print itself is art and of a genius level (if you do, please don't tell me let me stay in happy ignorance) but what about the other works? Even if you don't see them as pure art, a lot of them are artistic.

Anyway, back to the original question. Would figure skating be 'better' if we threw out the choreography and music and everything that might be called its 'artistic' side and simply made them all do jumps and blade work in silence? Would it even survive, better or not?

 

[4everchan]

Anyway, back to the original question. Would figure skating be 'better' if we threw out the choreography and music and everything that might be called its 'artistic' side and simply made them all do jumps and blade work in silence? Would it even survive, better or not?

I haven't seen anyone taking that position in this thread. I am not sure where this argument came from really.

 

[Mathman]

So then we come back to the question of "What is art?" and how does it relate to "What is beauty?"

I think that the question, “What is beauty?” is the easier to study. Symmetry/symmetry-breaking is an important element. We expect that the right half of a person’s face looks the same as the left half. Marilyn Monroe moved her famous mole from her cheek to her chin in order that the symmetry of her features would be broken in a way that took advantage of the accepted rules for aesthetic symmetry-breaking. This seems to be hard-wired into the structure of the universe even at the quantum level. Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farah Fowler (fictitious characters) won the Nobel Prize for their work on Super Asymmetry, a beautiful theory. I just love the cello line in Haydn’s string quartet op. 76 no. 4, first movement, when it breaks off from our expectations the second time the characteristic theme appears. "Proportion" is another aspect of beauty that can be analyzed with a fair amount of precision and objectivity.

To take a different tack, baby animals (including human animals) look cute. Somehow natural selection has cultivated this look side-by-side with adult concepts of “what is cuteness?” in order to guarantee that adults will take care of babies.

The cuteness of a baby is not, however, art. It is the opposite of art (cf. artificial: something made by human ingenuity rather than occurring in nature. “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” ) In fact the ultimate origins of the word “art” go back to the Latin “arma,” referring to weapons of war. (“Stones are used by the chimpanzee, but a well-forged spear is the tool for me.”) One of the most important classics of Chinese philosophy from the Confucian era is “The Art of War” (Mengzi, 300 BCE). This example of how people use the word “art” – is it useful or distracting? I,personally side with Mao Zedong: “let a hundred flowers bloom.” (Flowers are not art of course because they are naturally occurring, but flower cultivation – I agree with Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee – “In our country, yes, gardener sare held in high esteem"

With regard to "What is art?" I imaginne myself to be a fifth grade teacher and I assign the children the task, use the word art in a sentence. One sutdent writes, "The Mona Lisa is a famous work of art." Anthher writes, "The art of basketweaving was a unifying cultural element among the city-states on the Euphrates River " Did either of these students flunk the test?

 

[TallyT]

I haven't seen anyone taking that position in this thread. I am not sure where this argument came from really.

If the art doesn't matter, then it's a waste of their time and effort (and money on copyright).

 

[Mathman]

I haven't seen anyone taking that position in this thread. I am not sure where this argument came from really.

I think that where this argument came from is the lament (for instance of the blogger linked in the original post on this thread) that the ISU, through its scoring rules and protocols, does reward and encourage jump, jump, jump, to the relative disadvantage of aspects of skating that have historically been regarded as "artistic."

Others, of course, have no such complaints. I don't, for instance. I think the balance is pretty much OK. (If it's art I want I can always turn to my Lego set, as referenced above by Tally T in connection with exhibits at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. }