03 — ARTWORK
Two Boys Blowing Bubbles
- MEDIUM
- Oil on panel, 31 x 25 cm
- TYPE
- Genre
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION DOWNLOAD THE FULL FILE ↓
- FILE
- 1000 × 1279 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Two Boys Blowing Bubbles c. 1670 Oil on panelTerm in painting for a support of wood, metal, or other rigid substance, as distinct from canvas. Until the adoption of canvas in the 15th century nearly all the movable paintings of Europe were executed on wood, and even up to the beginning of the 17th century it is probable that as much painting was done on the one support as on the other. Painters who worked on a small scale often used copper panels (Elsheimer is a leading example), and in the colonial art of South America copper and tin and even lead and zinc were used. On a larger scale, slate has occasionally been used as a support, notably by Rubens for his altarpiece for Sta Maria in Vallicella (the Chiesa Nuova) in Rome; the picture he originally painted was said to reflect the light unpleasantly and slate was used for the replacement to produce a more matt finish. For wood panels the Italian masters of the Renaissance preferred white poplar, while oak was the most common wood used in northern Europe. Many other types were used, however; analysis of the contents of art galleries has yielded a long list, including beech, cedar, chestnut, fir, larch, linden, mahogany, olive, and walnut. In the 20th century cedar, teak, and dark walnut are favourites, and modern painters have also used plywood, fibre-board, and other synthetic materials as supports., 31 x 25 cm National Galleryan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen)., London
In Netscher's genreIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature. paintings from the late 1660s children appears repeatedly. Like all genre paintings, these depictions are conventional images. Two Boys Blowing Bubbles ranks among Netscher's most engaging paintings of children. The young lad in the background blows a bubble while his older playmate gazes at one floating above. Two seashells and a very ornate silver tazza (which expertly reproduces one fabricated by the renowned silversmith Adam van Vianen in 1618) lie on the ledge before the boys.
The motif of bubble blowing in Dutch art is traditionally associated with the Latin expression, "Homo Bulla" (Man is Like a Bubble). This refers to the ephemerality of human existence like: like a soap bubble which quickly bursts, life is fleeting.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r434e5b1f1599e6,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Two Boys Blowing Bubbles by NETSCHER, Caspar},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/netscher-caspar-redb41688b897b9/two-boys-blowing-bubbles-r434e5b1f1599e6},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
