Morgan Ogilvie
Obstinate Toy Soldiers: Beast, 2026
Oil on canvas
22 x 13 x 3.81 cm
What do you think about a little girl dressed up as a rhinoceros riding a scooter with streamers? Although we often think of play as trivial, Johan Huizinga argued in...
What do you think about a little girl dressed up as a rhinoceros riding a scooter with streamers? Although we often think of play as trivial, Johan Huizinga argued in his seminal book Homo Ludens (1938) that play is so fundamental to human culture that we should not be called Homo sapiens, "Wise Man," but Homo Ludens—"Man the Player." This child is already doing what artists do: selecting symbols, combining them, trying on identities, producing meaning through images. In this way the painting shows one of the earliest forms of image-making.
Exhibitions
On a Bit of Earth Which Had No Name