Mimetic Theories of Art and Sport

Abstract

This study outlines mimesis as an artistic concept that spans the middle ages, the Renaissance, the modern and the postmodern and then applies this terminology to the use of the term in the context of sport. This has been done through the application of the “four orders of mimesis” within the general categories of the premodern, the modern and the postmodern as applied to sport. This is achieved through a rehearsal of arguments gleaned from theorists of sport which converge as aspects of mimesis. The reason for doing so is that if a similar mimetic quality can be found in both the disciplines of art and sport, then it appears that there is a relationship between them and, in agreement with Huizinga (1949), it is conceded that this common “element” is “play” and more specifically that this commonality can be described as mimetic “play”. However, at first, it is necessary to discern a common mimetic quality historically associated with the sport. Once that is achieved, an analysis of “play” follows and this study closes with two deductions that the art-sport dialectic, via the lens of “play” suggests conceptually, namely “Self-referentiality” and “absence” or “content” suggesting a continuum between art and sport and thus concludes with an analysis of sport as a tragic form of art in many instances (of expression).