The Olympics' "Pentathlon of the Muses" and How the Arts Became a Temporary Sport of the Intellect

You have to say one thing about the dubious founder (or father in some people's minds) of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin: The man was certainly a bon vivant and understood the importance of bettering the body through sport and the mind through the arts. But if you read an article I once wrote here about who the true founder of the Olympic ideal was, you'd know that Coubertin more than likely concocted the idea to feature sports as well as cerebral activity in the arts based on a philosophy of British doctor William Penny Brookes. This doctor was the true revivalist of the Ancient Greek Olympic games in the 1860's through his Wenlock Olympian Society in U.K. Brookes' longstanding philosophy was to better not only the body of athletic (or non-athletic) people but also celebrated learning and expanding yourself intellectually.

Coubertin had visited one of the Wenlock Olympics in the early 1890's and was impressed with the idea that sports and the arts could coalesce into something aesthetically and intellectually pleasing. That idea was broached because Brookes' opening ceremonies during his Wenlock Society were the first to feature arts-related activity that we're so familiar with today.

Well, ok, now that we have history straight when plenty in the media won't bother to report it correctly, you can jump ahead to 1912 when Coubertin had already claimed the title of being the modern founder of the Olympic Games. By that time, four Olympics had already been undertaken under his control to unheralded success. The above ideal of mixing the arts with sports apparently gestated in Coubertin's mind for a while for unknown reasons, even though arts-related performances were already starting to be employed in the opening ceremonies during the early 20^th century.

Perhaps going with the basic philosophy of Dr. Brookes above, Coubertin had an epiphany that the arts were just as much of a sport as physical sports and employed feats of the intellect that should be award-worthy. That's when Coubertin decided to create a platform for artists to create works during each Olympics that would be judged and given one of the three classic medals depending on where they placed. Because Coubertin had already set a grandiose ambiance for the Olympics, he created a lofty name for this new addendum to the Olympics: The Pentathlon of the Muses.

Of course, having an arts off-branch at the Olympics with the word "Pentathlon" in it would indicate doing something artistic moves while wrestling, doing the long jump or throwing a javelin. What it really meant was competition in music, sculpture, painting, literature and architecture. And when you add prestigious artists to the judging panel trying to judge amateur artists (the amateur ruling applied here, too)--it can potentially lead to as many problems as other judging controversies in Olympics history...

Amateurs vs. the professionals...

Yes, they call amateurs that name for a reason--and it was perhaps a mistake of Coubertin to make all of the artists competing in the Pentathlon of the Muses be budding artists instead of polished ones. When Coubertin invited some of the biggest names in each respective artistic field to judge the works based on sports themes, that disparity between being a polished professional and just a dilettante artist became quite clear. Those judges would, over time, encompass such intimidating figures as Igor Stravinsky as well as various well-known statesmen of the era who were apparently considered qualified enough to judge works of literature and painting giving the essence of sport. Just imagining Stravinsky judging your musical work, though, is akin to looking into the mouth of a lion.

That metaphor isn't an exaggeration, because many of these judges turned their nose up at various works created through the 36 years of the contest's existence. It became so bad after a while that many of the judges refused to award medals some years along with the artists getting so ticked at the judge's attitudes that a few would refuse a bronze or silver medal due to thinking they deserved the gold.

You probably noticed the similarity there to future judging protests during various sporting events at the Olympics. Especially in sporting events that involve an artistic category in the scoring, subjectivity would (and still does) take over, ultimately leading to protests that still means a refusal of medals on occasion. The Pentathlon of the Muses was an entirely different entity, though, and even allowed Coubertin himself to anonymously submit a work (in the literature category) that actually won him the gold medal. Considering he was also a judge for many of the categories, such a thing would today reek of the worst judging bias or abusing your power.
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It seems that this artistic showcase concurrent with the Olympics was a bit of a plaything for Coubertin at the expense of exasperated judges who were gods in the arts world and despite the contest continuing for one more Olympics after Coubertin's death. The last Pentathlon of the Muses Coubertin saw was the one in 1936 Berlin. By that time, he was just an honorary International Olympic Committee President after stepping down in 1924, but he saw the eerie signs of the Nazi party shower gold medals to all German artists in every category as you might expect.

The arts became more or less tainted by the 1936 Olympics with the Nazi usurpation that would have made all art suffer badly in quality had the Olympics continued during WWII. In between that time and the next Summer Olympics in 1948 London, Coubertin died (in 1937) and the arts had a chance to bottle up a lot of energy and emotion after long years of suffering through warfare in the countries where the arts were thriving again.

That wouldn't be allowed to continue, however, as the 1948 Olympics became the last time a Pentathlon of the Muses was held due to the still-relevant problem of determining whether an artist was an amateur or already had professional credentials. This ultimately led to artistic events that take place in the days leading up to either a Summer or Winter Olympics...otherwise known as the Cultural Olympiad. Unfortunately, these events get ignored by the media more often than not.

Now when you see the artistry on display during Opening Ceremonies, it's with major, world-renowned artists who, instead of getting a gold medal, are much happier getting residual checks in the mail after having their work featured on international TV. That very scenario is starting to apply more and more to athletes at the Olympics, too, as million-dollar endorsements mean more than putting up with continuously biased judges or going through the protocol to just get a medal.

Sources:

www.askart.com/askart/interest/Olympic_Artists_1.aspx