Art of Human Body in Sport in Ancient Greece and Its Images in the Olympic VisualOn the Constructing Logic of Sports Images with a Case Study of "Discobolus"

Originated from sports, sports images are important representation of the sport spirit, playing a profound role in the dissemination of sport culture. Based on the "Discobolus", a global iconic sports image, the characteristics of athletic body art in ancient Greece and their relationship with the Olympic Games are explored by stylistics and iconography. Rooted in the shared history and cultural life in ancient Greece, power and beauty of human body in Olympia became a central theme in the art of sculpture in ancient Greece. The image construction of the athletic human body in Greek art followed the aesthetic principles and ideals of ancient Greece, inheriting the Egyptian visual tradition in its concealed flat features. The production of ideal human body represented in Discobolus, made the integration of Olympic sports and ancient art perfectly well; in th meanwhile, it surpassed sport and reality, becoming the representation of beauty. It was this "ideal beauty" that made the image widely disseminated in various media, with a highly fixed symbolic form, and became the visual symbol of the Olympics and even the sport culture.