03 — ARTWORK
Boy Lighting a Pipe from a Candle
TERBRUGGHEN, Hendrick · 1623 →
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas, 68 x 56 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
- FILE
- 900 × 1126 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
A pleasant-looking young soldier from the military barracks, sword on arm, is lighting his pipe from a candle which he has lifted out of the sconce in front of him. Two bright spheres of light are thrown over his face and shirt. The subject chosen by the artist is so simple, and at first sight so unambitious, that a contemporary viewer accustomed to formulas may well have sought for some abstruse meaning hidden beneath the apparent slightness of the theme. But the work demands no interpretation, only an appreciation of the episode depicted, and this simplicity is of pioneer significance in the development of genre paintingThe depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents.. We learn from this picture that in Dutch 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. it was not only everyday objects that came to be acceptable as subjects for paintings but also the unconscious and instinctive actions of men and women.
Terbrugghen was a Dutch follower of Caravaggio and this is manifested by this painting, too.
OTHER WORKS BY HENDRICK TERBRUGGHEN
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r8f16b27068a039,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Boy Lighting a Pipe from a Candle by TERBRUGGHEN, Hendrick},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/terbrugghen-hendrick-rc5450073970782/boy-lighting-a-pipe-from-a-candle-r8f16b27068a039},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.