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

[4everchan]

Diving could NOT just as well be art. There is no performance in diving. Art is about emotional and intellectual expression, in a way that is heightened from normalcy. Skating allows for storytelling, for deep personal expressionism, it has an entire canvass to paint on. It's not possible to do that in diving, where the only thing available is doing a single jump in a direct line from point A to point B, while constantly twisting your body, making it impossible to express much of anything.

I don't consider either sports as art forms. I was clear with that. Actually, for some people, not here obviously because we love skating so much, figure skating is just going around the ice and doing some fancy spins and jumps, twisting and bending in awkward positions.

 

[Mathman]

^ (To spare 4everchan the embarassment of having to blow his own horn), yes, 4everchan is a professional pianist.

I don't know why I can't seem to leave this thread alone , but since the sport of diving was brought up... To me it is beyond question that diving, like figure skating, is a sport that contains an esthetic component. Divers are judged not just by how many twists and somersaults they do in the air, but also on how pretty and graceful they look while they are doing them. If this were not so, the sport of diving would be no more interesting than throwing a cat off a cliff to see if it lands on its feet.

Whether this means that diving is an art, or Art, or ART! or ART!!!!-- that question stikes me (YMMD) as nit-picky and of little content or interest.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Actually, for some people, figure skating is just going around the ice and doing some fancy spins and jumps, twisting and bending in awkward positions.

It's factually not just those things though (even though the scoring system and judging for the past 15 years has increasingly tried its best to make skating seem like that). There is constant facial expression and full-body expression available in skating, while performing to music. It's possible to be completely unartistic within skating, but it's also possible to be fully artistic. It's always been the intent of the sport to be artistic and athletic at the same time.

The word impossible is very strong here.

It's a strong statement because it's the truth. An audience can't even see someone's facial expression when they are are flipping around 3+ times in the air. It's literally not possible in diving to have artistic substance anywhere close to what is possible in music, film, theater, painting, etc. The canvass for diving is not only spatially and personally extremely limiting with regards to what can be expressed, it's also limited by time - a 2 second window of being able to do nothing but fall through the air while clenching your body in twisting form.

 

[Mathematician]

It's literally not possible in diving to have artistic substance anywhere close to what is possible in music, film, theater, painting, etc.

Yea, I agree. It wouldn't be comparable to any of those arts by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[yesterday]

Okay, one more. Just because

 

[TallyT]

It's possible to be completely unartistic within skating, but it's also possible to be fully artistic. It's always been the intent of the sport to be artistic and athletic at the same time.

I have been watching a bit of Sasha Cohen, and I really don't want to hear someone argue that the artistry in her skating [1] isn't there because skating isn't artistic or [2] doesn't count because skating isn't artistic.

It's literally not possible in diving to have artistic substance anywhere close to what is possible in music, film, theater, painting, etc.

Ummmm, while I agree with that as such, we don't want to get into the murky waters of defining, with numbers and percentages and stopwatches, how much 'art' needs to be in a work of art to actually make it art (not great art, but art). A tiny flash of breathtaking manmade beauty that is complete in itself meets the definition for me. There are fan snaps of Yuzuru in practice that some people would say are as beautiful and move as many people as the professional (nonskating) photo which ended up in a Boston museum.

The world's greatest divers can create that flash and they do it deliberately, as @Mathman said, to look graceful and make the move beautiful.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

Can exhibition pieces and ice shows, which do not need the competitive aspect of the sport, be made into 'art'?

it is possible, but very unlikely. This is a problem of motivation: skaters and coaches are always striving to show their best in competition. Gala programs are secondary, and ice shows in most cases are kitsch, not very good imitation of ballet. It must be borne in mind that both athletes and choreographers in figure skating are professionals in creating "small forms", programs with a maximum duration of 4 minutes. A 2-hour performance with a common plot is a completely different matter.

Therefore, I think the chances to turn skate into art are much higher in competitive programs. Although there are no guarantees here either. For example, the program "Bolero" for Kamila Valieva was hardly created as a work of art. The main goal was rather to knock out any possible rivals due to the difficulty of the content and the skill of the performer.

 

[icewhite]

I have been watching a bit of Sasha Cohen, and I really don't want to hear someone argue that the artistry in her skating [1] isn't there because skating isn't artistic or [2] doesn't count because skating isn't artistic.



Ummmm, while I agree with that as such, we don't want to get into the murky waters of defining, with numbers and percentages and stopwatches, how much 'art' needs to be in a work of art to actually make it art (not great art, but art). A tiny flash of breathtaking manmade beauty that is complete in itself meets the definition for me. There are fan snaps of Yuzuru in practice that some people would say are as beautiful and move as many people as the professional (nonskating) photo which ended up in a Boston museum.

The world's greatest divers can create that flash and they do it deliberately, as @Mathman said, to look graceful and make the move beautiful.

I think our basic definition of art differs a lot. I don't think looking graceful or making things beautiful are defining factors of art.

(Neither are facial expressions. Don't even get me started on facial expressions. (I think they should be totally ignored in fs judging.) Actors on very cheap soap operas have lots of facial expressions, that doesn't make what they are doing art...)

 

[Mathman]

I don't think that ...making things beautiful (is a) defining factors of art.

I thnk that we could do worse in trying to define art than by starting here: art refers to the creation of beautiful things. I know, I know: I can hear the philsophers of aesthetics howling already.

But that way we could start a thread on "What is beauty" and another on "is there beauty in figure skating." Not to mention one on "You call THAT atrocious program beautiful?! ROF.L you idiot."

 

[TallyT]

I think our basic definition of art differs a lot. I don't think looking graceful or making things beautiful are defining factors of art.

They can be factors (after all, its beauty is part of what makes the Millau Viaduct celebrated as art as well as engineering) since a lot of people are actually moved and inspired by beauty in one form or another. They don't have to be factors, there is art that is downright ugly in my eyes. They are not defining factors, which really doesn't matter since no one here or in the wider world has anything like a comprehensive definition of it anyway so my answer would be that 'defining features of art' is a Humpty Dumpty phrase.

 

[icewhite]

They can be factors (after all, its beauty is part of what makes the Millau Viaduct celebrated as art as well as engineering) since a lot of people are actually moved and inspired by beauty in one form or another. They don't have to be factors, there is art that is downright ugly in my eyes. They are not defining factors, which really doesn't matter since no one here or in the wider world has anything like a comprehensive definition of it anyway so my answer would be that 'defining features of art' is a Humpty Dumpty phrase.

Hm, I agree with what you're saying, only I don't know why it is a Humpty Dumpty phrase. I read your post as you using beauty as such a factor as an argument, and I said it's not a defining factor, that's all.

 

[4everchan]

I think some people in this thread (like myself) see art the way it is described historically (fine art), others see art as anything creative and expressive. There is a very wide range between both. That's all I guess.

 

[TallyT]

Hm, I agree with what you're saying, only I don't know why it is a Humpty Dumpty phrase. I read your post as you using beauty as such a factor as an argument, and I said it's not a defining factor, that's all.

'Defining factors of art' is the Humpty Dumpty phrase, because in the end so many people believe it means something different and there's really no way to pin it down. JMO, of course.

 

[Blades of Passion]

A tiny flash of breathtaking manmade beauty that is complete in itself meets the definition for me. There are fan snaps of Yuzuru in practice that some people would say are as beautiful and move as many people as the professional (nonskating) photo which ended up in a Boston museum.

The world's greatest divers can create that flash and they do it deliberately, as @Mathman said, to look graceful and make the move beautiful.

A smile can be a breathtaking manmade beauty. Some people are breathtaking looking all the time inherently. That does not mean their existence equals art.

A diver's form can be beautiful looking, but having attractive form by itself is not art, it's not being used for any other purpose, like a dance or skating move is being used within a greater context of other moves to create something meaningful. Divers aren't even trying to create the most interesting looking shapes, there isn't pure mode of creativity or personal expression happening, they are trying to hold a form that creates the least amount of splash.

Art is something that gives perspective and reveals the soul. A photo shows perspective and creates an image that differs from what the human eye itself sees. It says something about what the person who took the photo finds valuable or interesting or alarming, or at the very least where they were in their life when they happened to take the photo. Not every photo is art of course, but there's more possibility of emotional and intellectual expression there than a dive ever provide. No dive is ever going to tell us how the person feels about world hunger or what it means to lose a loved one.

 

[4everchan]

Well... watching a competition live, unless you are right at the front, forget about much of the facial expression. So there's that.

 

[Mathman]

I think some people in this thread (like myself) see art the way it is described historically (fine art)...

I think that this is quite an inaccurate statement about the way that the word art has been used "historically."

Just for fun I Googled "The Art of Fletching." Google returned 2,770,000 results in 0.33 seconds. I think it is incontestable that from the origins of the word as "manmade rather than naturally occurring" to the present, the term has been attached to an astonishingly broad array of objects and creative activity. For instance, just because something is useful does noot disqualify it from being referred to as art.

A Grecian urn is made to store olive oil. This utility did not stop the poet Keats from rapturous praise, in particular comparing the art and beauty of a well-turned urn to music with these words:

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes [the evocative lines of the Grecian urn], play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone."

OK, I'm off to Google "The Art of basket weaving."

 

[4everchan]

I think that this is quite an inaccurate statement about the way that the word art has been used "historically."

Just for fun I Googled "The Art of Fletching." Google returned 2,770,000 results in 0.33 seconds. I think it is incontestable that from the origins of the word as "manmade rather than naturally occurring" to the present, the term has been attached to an astonishingly broad array of objects and creative activity. For instance, just because something is useful does noot disqualify it from being referred to as art.

A Grecian urn is made to store olive oil. This utility did not stop the poet Keats from rapturous praise, in particular comparing the art and beauty of a well-turned urn to music with these words:

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes [the evocative lines of the Grecian urn], play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone."

OK, I'm off to Google "The Art of basket weaving."

I said fine art didn't I ? Have a look at fine art not at basketweaving art

 

[Mathman]

A smile can be a breathtaking manmade beauty.

For instance, the Mona Lisa. Or is that just Leonardo's joke on the viewer?

 

[4everchan]

Will save you the trouble.

Fine art - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[el henry]

Someone in the back row cannot see the actor’s smile, but they know the actor is smiling. A skater who is truly artistic can project their feelings to the back row, just like an actor. It is rarer in skating, true. But guess which skater is a master at it?

of course I think figure skating is a blend of artistry and athleticism, and that the two should be equally balanced n competitions and in scoring. (Surprise ) And that reaching the back row should be a part of that.