Is a creative person a sensitive person who is afraid of sports and a healthy lifestyle? There is an opinion that sports and art have nothing in common. But let's remember the famous classics.
There is an opinion that a healthy lifestyle and serious art do not go together. Especially in one person. A creative person is a sensitive nature, inclined to overestimate and exaggerate where it was possible to do without it. Their hypersensitivity helps them to fully reveal their talent, but at the same time it can destroy them if they do not stop in time.
However, the history of world literature proves the opposite - after all, among the classics there are enough of those who, by their example, refute these delusions. Below we will discuss some of them.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Lived: 1859-1930
Country: UK
Works: stories about Sherlock Holmes, the novel "The Lost World"
Sports: cricket, golf, boxing, football
Doyle (weight about 100 kg, height 190 cm) was always in excellent physical shape and was physically active all his life. However, he was most successful at playing cricket. So, he took part in 10 games for the team of the world's most famous Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
In 1900, at the age of 41, playing for the MCC, he served the ball and beat (“took the gate”) the most famous player in the history of cricket, William Gilbert Grace. This incident made such a strong impression on the writer that he sang it in the poem "A Reminiscence of Cricket".
Boxing was not easy for the writer, although he took part in boxing fights, which took place according to all the rules - in the ring and with the referee. However, this had its advantages, because the ability to work with fists helped him in life. So, for example, in his youth, having got a job as a ship's doctor on a whaling ship, Arthur had a fight with a big steward on the very first evening.
After the fight, he heard the steward say to his friend: "Dokhtur has what we need - look, he put a lamp for me." By the way, professionals highly appreciated the reliability and realism of the description of fights in Doyle's novel "Rodney Stone" about British boxers.
And we can also assume that it was Arthur Conan Doyle in Switzerland who contributed to the emergence of ski resorts. In 1894, the writer took his wife, sick with tuberculosis, to the Davos Valley for the winter. After reading about Nansen's crossing of Greenland, Doyle ordered skis from Norway and began to master the local slopes - no one had thought about skiing in the Swiss mountains before him. The first mountain from which Conan Doyle descended was Mount Jakobshorn (2590 m).
The creator of Sherlock Holmes was aware that, while playing several sports at the same time, he could not achieve noticeable success in any of them: "But I got much more pleasure from them than any adherent of one thing."
Bernard Show
Lived: 1856-1950
Country: UK
Works: plays "Pygmalion", "House where hearts break", "Saint John"
Sports: surfing
In March 1932, South African Travel News published photographs of the famous British playwright in a bathing suit and surfboard on Muisenberg Beach, a suburb of Cape Town. The journalist in his article notes that the writer has mastered a new sport "in a few minutes."
Perhaps it was a type of surfing in which you do not need to get up on the board, but you can move along with the wave, lying on your stomach. The magazine also reported that the 75-year-old writer thought to spend only one day in Cape Town, but he liked it so much that he decided to stay for six weeks.
Shaw remained in good physical shape and led a healthy lifestyle until a ripe old age. He never smoked, did not drink alcohol, ate moderately, loved walking and tennis. In addition, Shaw became a vegetarian at 25 and has since spoken out against sport hunting and scientific animal experimentation. And the Nobel laureate died at 94 from kidney failure caused by an injury he sustained when he fell down a ladder while pruning tree branches in his garden.
Maksim Gorky
Lived: 1868-1936
Country Russia
Works: the novel "Mother", the play "At the Bottom", the stories "Childhood", "In People", "My Universities"
Sports: kettlebell juggling
Maxim Gorky (Alexey Peshkov) was known as a hero. Proof of this is his photographs - such mustache weaklings do not let go. But, unlike modern strongmen, Gorky did not attend the gym - he had other "universities". For example, Derenkov's bakery in Kazan, where he worked as a baker's assistant at the age of 16 and carried five-pood sacks of flour. “20 poods of flour mixed with water gives about 30 poods of dough. The dough needs to be kneaded well, and this was done by hand.
I carried loaves of baked bread by weight to Derenkov's shop early in the morning, at about 6-7. Then he put a large basket with rolls, rosans, and horseshoe cakes - 2-2 1/5 pounds and carried it out of town to the Arskoye field to the Rodionovsky Institute, to the theological academy, "- this is how Gorky described his" training program. " In addition to the bakery, in his youth, Gorky had other opportunities to pump up: he worked in the fish and salt industries, in repair shops, and worked for rich men. Having become a famous writer, Gorky did not lose good physical shape. For example, he could cross himself ten times without haste with a pound weight.
Alexander Kuprin
Lived: 1870-1938
Country Russia
Works: the story "Duel", "Pomegranate Bracelet"
Sports: classic wrestling
Alexander Ivanovich was a very energetic young man. For example, at 22, second lieutenant Kuprin jumped out of a second-floor window in response to a call from a lady who promised a kiss for this trick.
When Kuprin retired at 24, he moved to Kiev, where he found a way to throw out the passions that were overwhelming him: he met the owners of the Russian Circus, the Nikitin brothers, and became interested in classical wrestling (then wrestling fights were part of the circus program).
The writer himself began to wrestle in light weight, and then in 1899 he organized the first wrestling club in the city - "Kiev Athletic Society". There, in the Nikitin brothers' circus, Kuprin met Ivan Poddubny. At that time, the legendary athlete was engaged in belt wrestling, but Kuprin persuaded him to try himself in classical wrestling (which made Poddubny famous). Kuprin corresponded with another famous fighter, Ivan Zaikin, until the end of his life.
Also in 1901, having moved to St. Petersburg, the writer participated in the organization of wrestling matches in the circus "Modern", where he had a place at the judge's table. It is interesting that when controversial moments arose on the carpet, the gallery always demanded that it was his word that was decisive.
Lev Tolstoy
Lived: 1828-1910
Country Russia
Works: novels "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina"
Sports: walking
One of the most important representatives of classical literature, Leo Tolstoy, from childhood to old age, did exercises every day, lifted weights and did not forget about the horizontal bar, on which in his prime he could spin like a real gymnast. When the writer was 34 years old, he noticed that some city dweller was spying on his bathing wife.
The classic, being in excellent physical shape, thrashed the erotomaniac well. Levin in "Anna Karenina" skates so dexterously on the skating rink in the Moscow Zoological Garden, because Tolstoy himself loved to skate and did tricks that he later attributed to his character.
Hiking and traveling were an important part of the count's life. It is known that he regularly walked from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana (190 km), made walking pilgrimages from Yasnaya Polyana to Optina Pustyn (150 km), and also from Moscow to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (80 km). And not light, but carrying everything you need behind your back.
This is how Tolstoy's luggage is described by his servant Sergei Arbuzov, with whom he went to the Optina Monastery in 1881: "Nightwear, two pairs of socks, two towels, several handkerchiefs, two canvas blouses, a sheet, a small pillow and leather boots." Walkers got food on the way in taverns.
At 50, the writer became a vegetarian. A trip to the slaughterhouse in Tula, after which he decided to give up meat, is described in his essay "The First Step", in the same place the writer talks about his new diet: “My diet consists mainly of hot oatmeal, which I eat twice a day with wheat bread.
In addition, at lunch I eat cabbage soup or potato soup, buckwheat porridge or potatoes, boiled or fried in sunflower or mustard oil, and a compote of prunes and apples. The dinner I eat with my family can be replaced, as I have tried, with oatmeal alone. My health not only has not suffered, but has improved significantly since I gave up milk, butter and eggs, as well as sugar, tea and coffee."
William Faulkner
Lived: 1897-1962
Country: USA
Works: novels "Noise and Fury", "The Mansion", the story "Bear"
Sports: horse riding
Since childhood, William Faulkner dreamed of becoming a good rider (and instead became a Nobel Prize winner in literature). His father kept a stable with carriages for rent and the future writer spent all his free time with his father's horses.
On his 11th birthday, Faulkner was presented with an unbroken piebald stallion that almost killed a teenager during his first trip. This did not change William's attitude to horse riding: he said until old age that if the horses had not changed cars, he would have been engaged in stables all his life.
The sports component in his hobby appeared only when Faulkner turned 60 and was invited to work at the University of Virginia. There Faulkner met the owner of the riding school, Grover Vandevender, who taught him how to take hurdles.
The athlete from Faulkner came out useless: for example, he spread his knees wide instead of pressing them to the sides of the horse when he took the barrier, and as a result, he flew up in the saddle, which, upon landing, hurt him in the tailbone. Performing these exercises, the writer put on a special belt that fixes the spine - even without equestrian sports, his back hurt due to an injury he received at the flight school of the British Royal Air Force during the First World War.
In addition, Faulkner had a fragile physique (height 167 cm, weight 49 kg), which did not inspire respect for the horses - they did not obey him well. Because of this, the writer, during horseback riding, or participating in hunts, regularly fell and was injured. The last time Faulkner got off his horse was a few weeks before he died of myocardial infarction, which overtook him at the age of 64 (it is possible that the fall and the heart attack are somehow connected).
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Lived: 1864-1901
Country: France
Works: paintings "Laundress", "Portrait of Vincent Van Gogh", posters for the cabaret "Moulin Rouge"
Sports: swimming
As modern researchers suggest, Count Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa suffered from a genetic disease affecting bone tissue. At the age of 13, the future artist broke his right tibia, at 14 - the left, and then his legs stopped growing. By the age of 18, he turned into a cripple 1 m 54 cm tall, with a normal body, but short legs. Until the age of 16, Toulouse-Lautrec did not play any sports, although by origin he should have at least sit well in the saddle and go hunting with his aristocrat father.
But in the spring of 1881 in Nice, a sixteen-year-old boy discovered that, despite his ugliness, he could swim and row, and began to train his body vigorously. "I swim fast and well," he said, "but ugly, like a toad."
Over the next three years, Toulouse-Lautrec managed to pump up the relief muscles. He worked intensively with dumbbells, swam a lot and even installed a rowing machine in his workshop. The habit of playing sports turned out to be so tenacious that the artist tried to keep himself in good shape for the rest of his life, despite his addiction to alcohol and syphilis. Venereal disease killed Toulouse-Lautrec at a fairly early age.
Guy de Maupassant
Lived: 1850-1893
Country: France
Works: novel "Dear friend", short stories "Pyshka", "Necklace"
Sport: rowing
Until the age of 13, Guy de Maupassant lived with his mother on the banks of the English Channel, where he learned to swim and row. At 18, having come to Normandy on vacation, he rescued the drowning decadent poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, who may not have actually been drowned, but drowned. Having come to his senses, the poet invited Guy de Maupassant to dinner and treated him to a fried monkey.
Later, having got a job in Paris, Guy de Maupassant spent all weekends and holidays on the Seine, rowing on a six-oar skiff, which he and his friends had jointly bought. According to his contemporaries, the writer could row against the current for hours.
Guy de Maupassant did not drink or smoke, but at the age of 27 he contracted syphilis and began to suffer from headaches. At the end of the 19th century, penicillin had not yet been discovered and there was no effective cure for syphilis. To get rid of the pain, the writer began sniffing ether and then switched to morphine. He did not last long.
Alexey Tolstoy
Lived: 1817-1875
Country Russia
Works: the play "Death of Ivan the Terrible", the novel "Prince Silver"
Sports: Belt Wrestling
Count Alexei Tolstoy was a strong man by nature, many of his family were strong. For example, his uncle Vasily Perovsky twisted a poker with a corkscrew. However, to become a real athlete, inheritance alone is not enough.
In his youth, the future writer was so carried away by hunting that he could hunt down prey in the forest for a week. Like any real Russian hero, he specialized in wolves, elks and bears. In addition, the count liked to arrange feasts for serfs on his estate in the Red Horn, during which he fought with men on the belts.
The writer Vasily Insarsky, having met 30-year-old Alexei Tolstoy, describes the count as follows: “A handsome young man, with fine blond hair and a blush all over his cheek. He looked like a red maiden; to such an extent tenderness and delicacy pervaded his entire figure. You can imagine my amazement when one day I was told: "You know, this is the greatest strongman!"
I could not help smiling in the most incredulous, not to say contemptuous way; I myself belonged to the breed of strong people, I immediately thought that this ruddy and gentle young man was an "aristocratic" strongman and amazed his circle with some kind of gymnastic tricks. Subsequently, the reviews of many other persons positively confirmed that this delicate shell hides the real Hercules … he rolled silver spoons into a tube, drove nails into the wall with his finger, unbend horseshoes. I didn't know what to think."
