The Soap Bubble

A child shown frontally with vivid and bright colours, almost ‘vitrified’, holds a soap bubble painted with stunning transparencies and luminosity. It is a refined reference to the theme of the bulla, the amulet hinting at the fragility of earthly life. The image shows a crystal-clear optical definition, a mysterious stillness of gestures and gazes, an enamelled luminosity of the colour spread with geometrical precision, all those characteristic elements of Cagnaccio’s work. He adopted the metaphysical interpretation of ‘Magic realism’ which followed in the wake of the best Italian drawing tradition, prior to Raphael and Renaissance.