Jongen die zeepbellen blaast 1766

Editor: Here we have Johann Georg Wille's "Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles," created in 1766. It's a Baroque-style print and engraving currently housed at the Rijksmuseum. It has such a calm, still quality. What stands out to you? Curator: It's interesting how the ephemeral nature of bubbles meets the permanence of engraving. Think about that fleeting iridescence trapped, almost like a butterfly in amber. Do you notice how that act of blowing bubbles becomes almost...melancholy? A memento mori in miniature. Life’s transient beauty, captured in a fragile sphere, so easily popped and gone, mirroring our own existence, no? Editor: That’s beautiful. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was just focusing on the sweetness of the image. Curator: Exactly! And perhaps that's the point, isn't it? Wille invites us to both delight in the simple joy and reflect on its transience, all at once! And the detailed rendering… isn’t it superb? The almost photographic accuracy given the tools. He makes us feel like reaching out and almost popping one ourselves. How evocative that act really is, capturing a lost moment, so to speak, even one we might not actually know or had, if that makes sense? Editor: It does. So, the playfulness is tinged with a kind of longing? Curator: Precisely! I can’t look at bubbles the same way again. What I once dismissed as fun is a complex symbol about existing. Editor: Wow. I love how a simple image can hold so much. Thanks! Curator: It’s my pleasure entirely. It is in these beautiful visualisations where everything is much, much more. Thank *you*.