Homo Ludens (book) - X. Play-forms in Art

X. Play-forms in Art

“Wherever there is a catch-word ending in -ism we are hot on the tracks of a play-community.”

Huizinga has already established an indissoluble bond between play and poetry. Now he recognizes that “the same is true, and in even higher degree, of the bond between play and music” However, when he turns away from “poetry, music and dancing to the plastic arts” he “finds the connections with play becoming less obvious”. But here Huizinga is in the past. He cites the examples of the “architect, the sculptor, the painter, draughtsman, ceramist, and decorative artist” who in spite of her/his “creative impulse” is ruled by the discipline, “always subjected to the skill and proficiency of the forming hand."

On the other hand, if one turns away from the “making of works of art to the manner in which they are received in the social milieu” then the picture changes completely. It is this social reception, the struggle of the new "-ism" against the old "-ism" which characterises the play.