images of the games through history
Intro
- “at precisely 8 pm on the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year of the millennium - 8 being a lucky number in Chinese culture - an estimated tv audience of around 3 billion tuned in as 2,008 drummers, dressed as ancient warriors began the show”
- “Over the course of the next four hours, performers enacted a celebration of Chinese history and culture achievements, from Confucian philosophy to the invention of printing”
- with such a huge number of games being held throughout the 20 and 21st century, “a sheer preponderance of activity that gives some indication of how vital a component within international mass culture the Olympic movement has now become”
- “far from being simply a sporting festival”
- “The visual spectacle of the games, and the various culture manifestations that surround them”
- “Throughout the modern era, the Olympic Games have provided a primary focus for visual culture in its broadest sense”
- “ They have provided an impetus for paintings, prints and sculptures, for poster, flag, logo and stamp designs”
- also includes designs for medals, torches, mascots and badges, cigarette cards and board games
- To date, deployment of imagery has tended more towards the casual and the uncritical
- Olympic art competitions held between 1912 and 1948
- Breadth and diversity of responses to the Games in visual culture
- Lein Riefenstahl’s “iconic and infamous cinematic epic” 1936 Olympics
- 16 June 1894, the International Olympic Committee was born
- From this point on, the olympics sought to be about more than just sport
- drawing on the traditions of the ancient olympic games other cultural activities were always planned along side sports
- Coubertine’s perception of Olympism
- to this day, interconnectedness between sport and arts is still considered an integral aspect of the Olympics mission
The Birth of the Modern Olympics
- One of the earliest signs of sport and the arts coming together in the Olympics is the statue of Georgios Averoff
- this was a clear, explicit gesture of Greek national pride
- Followed by an unveiling of a national flag with Averoff “proffering a gesture of welcome”
- This was also an early sign of culture being conveyed through art and branding a nation intended to convey national pride, a key concept in modern day olympic branding
Promoting the Games : Publicity and the official olympic poster
- With the failure of the London Games 1908, came criticism towards the advertising present during the games
- The Daily Mail quoting “Thousands upon thousands of people are visiting the White City, but little or nothing is done to draw their attention”
- “Why should not huge posters be displayed in such a way that visitors could not but know that at certain hours certain events were being decided” (17 July 1908) cited in Rebecca Jenkins, The First London Olympics (London,2008)
- the absence of publicity and branding has been a notable feature of all the Games up until London
- “In an ear in which the advertising poster was at its apex in terms of both quantity and quality of production, it is striking that none of the early Olympic festivals had produced an official poster promoting the games as a whole”
- there is evidence however that some posters were created for individual events
- London, White City 1908 may be the first example of official publicity posters for the Games.
- Posters have then subsequently become one of the most powerful visual expressions associated with the Olympic Games.
Waving the Flag
- “Though modest in appearance, the London poster of 1908 established some basic design principles that would variously be adopted, adapted and rejected over the course of the next century”
- The image is dominated by a monumental athlete in costume.
- The professional running shoes suggest athletics, although the pose, hand on hip holding an olive crowned shield, is noticeably passive
- The figure stands over a typographical representation of the location of the Games
- Behind the athlete, the flags of many nations form a colourful background.
- “Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Union Jack flag takes pride of place at the apex”
- reflecting Edwardian Britain’s confident sense of its own place in the world
- The inclusion of national flags in the poster carried much significance for the moment of production
- Coubertin intended for the Games to be a competition between athletes, but due to certain events happening in the London Games between the UK and US, the birth of international competition occurred
- Flag waving featured in the posters for the Stockholm Games of 1912, designed by the swedish royal academician, Olle Hjortzberg
- “The Stockholm image represents a group of naked male youths performing a ‘march of nations’ while waving the national symbols of 22 of the 28 participating at the games
- Again, the flag of the hosts is predominant
- Problems and opinions arose about the hierarchy of flags within the image. The British and US flag being the next predominant after the Swedish, raised a few eyebrows and in some circumstances resulted in ‘a disinclination… to exhibit’
- A report claimed, however that the ordering of flags was ‘determined by colouristic, and not political, reasons’
- The Stockholm Games produced nearly 90,000, a huge up scale from any previous games.
- They were the first games to want to alert people from all over the world and to do this they asked all sweedish business men travelling abroad to carry a poster with them on their journeys
- This campaign further enlarged the reach and audience of the games from then on
- The official poster would from then on play a vital role in a wider olympic publicity drive and become an established element in the games
Classical Resonance
- The sculptures featured in the London and Stockholm posters represent the “classical heritage” on the games themselves
- The poster for Antwerp 1920 consists of an athlete once again towering over the host city with the nations flags spiralling down behind him, designed by Walter van der Ven
- the discus thrower is based upon a monument produced by Matthias Kessler, a bronze copy was then made to feature within the games themselves
- this showing clear efforts to advertise and commemorate national pride and culture
- “the intertwining of flags around an image of sport situated geographically in the city of Antwerp, proposed a more conciliatory present where nation states could compete on the playing field rather than the battlefields of Flanders”
- The poster design also being influenced by the moment as well as culture, referring to the war going on
- Other visual aspects of the poster and games in general communicate peace; the releasing of doves, coat of arms garlanded with flowers
- The Olympic flag of the 5 circles designed by Coubertin in 1914 was also flown for the first time
- The logo represents the union of the 5 continents
- The overarching design theme was the use of classicism to signify peace and internationalism
- “recognising the political value of staging the Games as a showcase for the new National Socialist regime, the German Organising Committee certainly put their full force behind this process, handing over responsibilities for publicity to the Ministry for Propaganda”
- 1934 - an official poster competition launched and 59 submissions received but all were rejected
- Franz Würbel’s powerful image of “an olive-wreath-clad olympic victor emerging from behind the looming presence of the Brandenburg gate” was accepted as the official poster for the games.
