Artists vs Scientists

I'm gonna take a little different stance on this. In my mind, at least, the scientists are easily enough distinguished; they are the stylists who have learned and honed their skills through years of hard work and experimentation, and have arrived upon their ways by way of practicing good theory.

The artists are a little different. You could define a boxing artist as one who either.....

A: Takes the breadth of knowledge and experience of boxing and creates something new, puts his own inventive wrinkle into the established, or.....

B: Exhibits a boxing style that appears to be an extension of themselves. Tyson is a good example of this, all frenetic strength and explosiveness. Lamotta could be another; he fought, as he later said himself "as if I didn't deserve to live," and I think there's quite a bit of self-loathing going on there.


Suffice it to say then, one needn't necessarily be even a good fighter by my criteria to be an artist.

My list, as examples......

Scientists:
Jose Napoles
Alexis Arguello
Gene Tunney
Joe Louis
Salvador Sanchez


Artists:
Nicolino Locche
Mike Tyson
Bobby Chacon
Willie Pep
Muhammad Ali

 

You forgot the unskilled labourer camp teeto.


Marciano, Moon, Ketchel etc

 

Charles Bukowski "Style"

Style is the answer to everything.
Fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous day.
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without style.
To do a dangerous thing with style, is what I call art.
Bullfighting can be an art.
Boxing can be an art.
Loving can be an art.

I would add that artist isn't only flashy when fighting medicore opposition, but artist is when he faces dangerous fighter - another artist or a scientist.

 

Have to disagree with you on science v art Teeto. Some fighters get away with breaking rules but have a logical scientific reason to do so based on their strengths. If anything its more a game of chess where boxers have different pieces on the board. You could argue Jones is the only player with a Queen on the board (I know that sounded gay lol)

 

Very true. Frost: "To write poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis without a net".

But there are still Mozarts and Beethovens (or Miles Davieses). Mozart revelled in working inside the very strict parameters of Wienna classicism and excelled at it. Beethoven was the first to bend, even break, these rules and excelled at it.

 

And to complete the analogy, he went on even after an airplane crash just like Beethoven did after losing his hearing. But this is getting to be an analogy too far. Better get out while there's still time.:!:

 

I want to congratulate Teeto on a thread long overdue and one that i am incapable of passing by.

Firstly,i will get the pedantry out of the way. Of course every boxer has some degree of artistry/expression and every 'unorthodox' pugilist has some degree of boxing science/fundamentals. This world is only black and white in the abstract debates on ESB forum!!!

To proceed,to me guys like hopkins,hagler,marquez,giardello are pure scientists,guys who have mastered and whats more RELY and win with the fundamentals.

The next tier are unorthodox guys like pac,jones,tyson,hamed who although way different from the textbook exhibit a certain identifiable style and perfect it. Thus still being scientists,but with an idiosyncratic non text book expression.

The third tier are guys like ray leonard,ali,robinson. Guys who can fight in a particular 'perfected' style which they are best at. (ala jones,tyson,hamed.) But they also have other 'styles' which they can win with against top opponents,and they employ these styles as the situation demands. AKA adaptability.

The top tier,and the only one i personally consider as 'artists' are those that have mastered the fundamentals,can exhibit a variety of styles equally well,AND got some new **** up their sleeves when the going gets tough.
Duran,fitz,calzaghe and monsieur Greb are prime examples of the artist.

 

Interesting post, though Calzaghe is a surprising choice for artist if you are taking mastering the fundamentals into account.