Art Encyclopedia - Genre
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Genre
Genre is a term used in art history and art criticism for paintings depicting scenes from daily life.
A type of picture usually small in size, depicting not so much a subject as everyday life and
surroundings. Usually paintings of subjects not otherwise painted. The word genre does not describe
landscape and still-life painting as these are specialities. Genre does not represent idealised life.
Its charm is that of familiarity.
Genre themes appear in nearly all art traditions. Painted decorations in ancient Egyptian tombs often
depict banquets, recreation, and agrarian scenes, and even medieval prayer books such as the Book of
Hours are decorated with "peasant" scenes of daily life. The Flemish Renaissance painter
Pieter Brueghel the Elder made peasants and their activities the subject of many of his paintings, and
genre painting was to flourish in Northern Europe in Brueghel's wake. Adriaen and Isaac van Ostade,
David Teniers, Aelbert Cuyp, Johannes Vermeer and Pieter De Hooch were among the many painters
specializing in genre subjects in the Netherlands during the 17th century. The generally small scale
of these artists' paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers.
With the decline of religious and historical painting in the 19th century, artists increasingly found
their subject matter in the life around them. Realists such as Gustave Courbet upset expectations by
depicting everyday scenes in huge paintings—at the scale traditionally reserved for
"important" subjects—thus blurring the boundary which had set genre painting apart as
a "minor" category. History painting itself shifted from the exclusive depiction of events
of great public importance to the depiction of genre scenes in historical times, both the private
moments of great figures, and the everyday life of ordinary people. Subsequently the Impressionists,
as well as such 20th century artists as Pierre Bonnard, Edward Hopper, and David Park painted scenes
of daily life, but in the context of modern art the term "genre painting" has come to be
associated mainly with painting of an especially anecdotal or sentimental nature, painted in a
traditionally realistic technique. The works of American painter Ernie Barnes and those of illustrator
Norman Rockwell could exemplify a more modern type of genre painting.
