Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of
genre art, depicts aspects of
everyday life
Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or normal.
Human diurnality means most peop ...
by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached either individually or collectively, thus distinguishing it from
history painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
s (also called ''grand genre'') and
portrait
A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...
s. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known person—a member of his family, say—as a model. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have been intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist. Because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
, or
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...
.
Genre subjects appear in many traditions of art. Painted decorations in
ancient Egyptian tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...
s often depict banquets, recreation, and agrarian scenes, and
Peiraikos is mentioned by
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
as a
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
panel painter of "low" subjects, such as survive in
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
versions and provincial wall-paintings at
Pompeii
Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
: "barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects". Medieval
illuminated manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
often illustrated scenes of everyday peasant life, especially in the
Labours of the Months
The term Labours of the Months refers to cycles in Medieval and early Renaissance art depicting in twelve scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. They are often linked to the signs of the Zodiac, and are ...
in the calendar section of
books of hours, most famously the
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.
To 1800
The
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
dominated the field until the 18th century, and in the 17th century both
Flemish Baroque painting and
Dutch Golden Age painting produced numerous specialists who mostly painted genre scenes. In the previous century, the Flemish
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
painter
Jan Sanders van Hemessen painted innovative large-scale genre scenes, sometimes including a moral theme or a religious scene in the background in the first half of the 16th century. These were part of a pattern of "
Mannerist inversion" in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, painting, giving "low" elements previously in the decorative background of images prominent emphasis. In the second half of the 16th century,
Pieter Aertsen and
Joachim Beuckelaer painted in Antwerp works showing in the foreground cooks or market-sellers amidst a bountiful spread of vegetables, fruit and/or meat, with small religious scenes in spaces in the background. Around the same time,
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre ...
made peasants and their activities, very naturalistically treated, the subject of many of his paintings.
Adriaen and
Isaac van Ostade
Isaac van Ostade (bapt. June 2, 1621 – buried October 16, 1649) was a Dutch genre and landscape painter.
Biography
Van Ostade was born in Haarlem. He began his studies under his brother, Adriaen, with whom he remained until 1641, when he s ...
,
Jan Steen
Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
Life ...
,
Adriaen Brouwer,
David Teniers,
Joos van Craesbeeck
Joos van Craesbeeck (''c''. 1605/06 – ''c''. 1660) was a Flemish baker and a painter who played an important role in the development of Flemish genre art, genre painting in the mid-17th century through his tavern scenes and dissolute portraits. ...
,
Gillis van Tilborgh
Gillis van Tilborgh or Gillis van Tilborch (''c''. 1625 – ''c''. 1678) was a Flemish painter who worked in various genres including portraits, 'low-life' and elegant genre paintings and paintings of picture galleries. He became the keeper of ...
,
Aelbert Cuyp,
Willem van Herp
Willem van Herp (I) or Willem van Herp the Elder (variations on first name: 'Guilliam', 'Gilliam' and 'Guillaume') (c. 1614 in Antwerp – 1677) was a Flemish Baroque painter specializing in religious paintings and small cabinet paintings of "low ...
,
David Ryckaert III
David Ryckaert III, David Rijckaert III or David Rijckaert the Younger (2 December 1612, Antwerp - 11 November 1661, Antwerp)[Jacob Jordaens
Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Fle ...]
,
Johannes Vermeer and
Pieter de Hooch were among the many painters specializing in genre subjects in the
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
during the 17th century. The generally small scale of these artists' paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers.
![Adriaen Brower - The Smokers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Adriaen_Brower_-_The_Smokers.jpg)
The apparent 'realism' of 17-century Dutch and Flemish art gives the viewer the initial impression that the artist solely intends to depict scenes of common life in a realistic way. Underneath the realistic representation are, however, often hidden underlying meanings, either moral or symbolic. For instance,
Gabriel Metsu's
''The Poultry seller'', 1662 shows an old poultry seller handing a young woman a live
rooster with its head craning upwards. The suggestive pose of the rooster's head and the fact that the Dutch word for 'birds' (vogelen) was also a vulgar term for sexual intercourse indicated that the artist also included a scabrous meaning in his painting. Genre painters often included symbolic meanings in their paintings. For instance, Adriaen Brouwer painted a number of genre portraits that represent the five senses or the seven deadly sins. An example is his genre group portrait ''The Smokers'' which depicts the sense of taste.
[Ingrid A. Cartwright, ''Hoe schilder hoe wilder: Dissolute Self-Por traiture in Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Art'', Advisors: Wheelock, Arthur, PhD, 2007 Dissertation, University of Maryland University of Maryland (College Park, Md.), p. 8] Other artists included moral meanings into their genre scenes. Jan Steen's
''The Happy Family'' painted in 1668 depicts a merry family evening with the head of the family, clearly inebriated, singing out his lungs, backed up by the mother and grandmother. The children join in on musical instruments. The moral of the picture is clarified in the note hanging from the mantelpiece reading "So de ouden songen, so pijpen de jongen" ("As the Old Sing, So the Young Pipe"), i.e. children will learn their behaviour from their parents.
Jacob Jordaens
Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading Fle ...
had painted a series of paintings on the same subject matter about 30 years earlier.
![Antoine Watteau - Pleasures of Love - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Antoine_Watteau_-_Pleasures_of_Love_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
One of the recurring themes in Flemish and Dutch genre painting is that of the ''
merry company''. These works typically show a group of figures at a party, whether making music at home or just drinking in a tavern. Other common types of scenes showed markets or fairs, village festivities ("kermesse"), or soldiers in their camp or guardroom.
The Dutch painter
Pieter van Laer arrived in 1625 in Rome where he started to paint genre paintings incorporating scenes of the Roman
Campagna
Campagna (Italian: ) is a small town and ''comune'' of the province of Salerno, in the Campania region of Southern Italy. Its population is 17,148. Its old Latin name was Civitas Campaniae (City of Campagna). Campagna is located in one of the v ...
. He also joined a loose organisation of Flemish and Dutch painters in Rome known as the
Bentvueghels
The Bentvueghels (Dutch for "Birds of a Feather") were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent ("painters' clique").
Activities
The members, which included ...
(Dutch for 'birds of a feather'). Van Laer was given the nickname "Il Bamboccio", which means "ugly doll" or "puppet". A number of Flemish and Dutch and later also Italian painters, who painted genre scenes of the Roman countryside inspired by van Laer's works were subsequently referred to as the ''
Bamboccianti
The ''Bamboccianti'' were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherland ...
''. The initial Bamboccianti included
Andries Andries is a Dutch and Afrikaans masculine given name or surname equivalent to Andrew.
Given name
People with this name include
* Andries van Artvelt (1590–1652), Flemish painter
* Andries Beeckman (1628–1664), Dutch painter
* Andries Bekker ( ...
and
Jan Both
Jan Dirksz Both (between 1610 and 1618 - August 9, 1652) was a Dutch people, Dutch painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, and etcher, who made an important contribution to the development of Dutch Italianate landscape painting.
Biography
Bo ...
,
Karel Dujardin
Karel Dujardin (September 27, 1626November 20, 1678) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Although he did a few portraits and a few history paintings of religious subjects, most of his work is small Italianate landscape scenes with animals and peasan ...
,
Jan Miel
Jan Miel (1599 in Beveren-Waas – April 1664 in Turin) was a Flemish painter and engraver who was active in Italy. He initially formed part of the circle of Dutch and Flemish genre painters in Rome who are referred to as the 'Bamboccianti' ...
and
Johannes Lingelbach
Johannes (or Johann) Lingelbach (1622–1674) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, associated with the second generation of Bambocciate, a group of genre painters working in Rome from 1625–1700.
Biography
Lingelbach was born in Frankfurt, ...
.
Sébastien Bourdon
Sébastien Bourdon (2 February 1616 – 8 May 1671) was a French painter and engraver. His ''chef d'œuvre'' is ''The Crucifixion of St. Peter'' made for the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, Notre Dame.
Biography
Bourdon was born i ...
was also associated with this group during his early career. Other Bamboccianti include
Michiel Sweerts
Michiel Sweerts or Michael Sweerts (29 September 1618 – 1 June 1664) was a Flemish painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, who is known for his allegorical and genre paintings, portraits and tronies. The artist led an itinerant lif ...
,
Thomas Wijck,
Dirck Helmbreker,
Jan Asselyn,
Anton Goubau,
Willem Reuter
Willem Reuter (c.1642 in Brussels – 1681 in Rome) was a Flemish painter of cityscapes, genre paintings and history paintings who was primarily active in Rome, where he was known as Guglielmo Reuter. He was part of the circle of Dutch and Flemi ...
, and
Jacob van Staverden. Their whose works would inspire local artists
Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi, known as Michelangelo delle Battaglie (18 February 1602 – 6 April 1660) was an Italian Baroque painter known for his genre scenes, battle pictures, small religious and mythological works and still lifes. His genre s ...
,
Giacomo Ceruti
Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti (October 13, 1698 – August 28, 1767) was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto (the little beggar) for his many paint ...
,
Antonio Cifrondi
Antonio Cifrondi (June 11, 1655 – October 30, 1730) was an Italian painter of the late Baroque, mainly of genre themes. He was active in Brescia and near Bergamo.
He was born to a poor mason in Clusone. After some local training. Cifrondi moved ...
, and
Giuseppe Maria Crespi among many others.
Louis le Nain
The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain (c.1600–1648), Louis Le Nain (c.1603–1648), and Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677). They produced genre works, portraits and portrait miniatures.
Lives and work
The ...
was an important exponent of genre painting in 17th-century France, painting groups of peasants at home, where the 18th century would bring a heightened interest in the depiction of everyday life, whether through the
romanticized paintings of
Watteau and
Fragonard, or the careful
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
of
Chardin Chardin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, (1699–1779), French painter noted for his still life works
* Jean Chardin, (1643–1713), French jeweller and traveller, author of ''The Trave ...
.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) and others painted detailed and rather sentimental groups or individual portraits of peasants that were to be influential on 19th-century painting.
In England,
William Hogarth (1697–1764) conveyed comedy, social criticism and moral lessons through canvases that told stories of ordinary people ful of narrative detail (aided by long sub-titles), often in serial form, as in his ''
A Rake's Progress'', first painted in 1732–33, then engraved and published in print form in 1735.
Developments in 16th Netherlandish art were received in Spain through the presence of Flemish artists working on projects in Spain as well as through Spain's sovereignty over the Spanish Netherlands. During the
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age ( es, Siglo de Oro, links=no , "Golden Century") is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise of the Spanish Empire under the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish H ...
of painting in the 17th century, many
picaresque genre scenes of street life as well as the kitchen scenes known as ''
bodegones'' were painted by Spanish artists such as
Velázquez (1599–1660) and
Murillo (1617–82). More than a century later, the artist
Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) used genre scenes in painting and
printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
as a medium for dark commentary on the human condition. Beginning in about 1808 Goya painted a significant number of genre scenes and he dealt with genre subjects again in various drawings during the period from 1810 to 1823.
19th century
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
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
(1819–77) upset expectations by depicting everyday scenes in large canvases of a scale traditionally reserved for "important" subjects. They thus blurred the boundary which had set genre painting apart as a "minor" category. Realist paintings on such a scale, and the new type showing people at work, emphasizing the effort involved, would not normally be called "genre paintings". Both monumental scale and the depiction of exhausting work are exemplified by ''
Barge Haulers on the Volga
''Barge Haulers on the Volga'' or '' Burlaki'' (russian: Бурлаки на Волге, ''Burlaki na Volge'') is an 1870–1873 oil-on-canvas painting by artist Ilya Repin. It depicts 11 men physically dragging a barge on the banks of the Volg ...
'' (
Ilya Repin
Ilya Yefimovich Repin (russian: Илья Ефимович Репин, translit=Il'ya Yefimovich Repin, p=ˈrʲepʲɪn); fi, Ilja Jefimovitš Repin ( – 29 September 1930) was a Russian painter, born in what is now Ukraine. He became one of the ...
, 1873).
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...
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. In French art this was known as the
Troubador style
Taking its name from medieval troubadours, the Troubadour Style (french: Style troubadour) is a rather derisive term, in English usually applied to French historical painting of the early 19th century with idealised depictions of the Middle Ages a ...
. This trend, already apparent by 1817 when
Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
painted ''Henri IV Playing with His Children'', culminated in the
pompier
''L'art pompier'' (literally 'fireman art') or ''style pompier'' is a derisive late-19th century French term for large 'official' academic art paintings of the time, especially historical or allegorical ones. The term derives from the helmets wi ...
art of French academicians such as
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) and
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815–91). In the second half of the century interest in genre scenes, often in historical settings or with pointed social or moral comment, greatly increased across Europe.
William Powell Frith (1819–1909) was perhaps the most famous English genre painter of the Victorian era, painting large and extremely crowded scenes; the expansion in size and ambition in 19th-century genre painting was a common trend. Other 19th-century English genre painters include
Augustus Leopold Egg
Augustus Leopold Egg Royal Academy, RA (2 May 1816, in London – 26 March 1863, in Algiers) was a British Victorian artist, and member of The Clique (art group), The Clique best known for his modern triptych ''Past and Present (paintings), Past ...
,
Frederick Daniel Hardy,
George Elgar Hicks
George Elgar Hicks (13 March 1824 – 1914) was an English painter during the Victorian era. He is best known for his large genre paintings, which emulate William Powell Frith in style, but was also a society portraitist.
Biography
Born o ...
,
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism. ...
and
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...
. Scotland produced two influential genre painters,
David Allan (1744–96) and
Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841). Wilkie's ''The Cottar's Saturday Night'' (1837) inspired a major work by the French painter
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
, ''
After Dinner at Ornans'' (1849). Famous
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n realist painters like
Vasily Perov
Vasily Grigorevich Perov (russian: Васи́лий Григо́рьевич Перо́в; 2 January 1834 (21 December 1833 Old Style, O.S.) – 10 June (29 May O.S.) 1882) was a Russian painter, a key figure of the Russian Realism (arts), R ...
and
Ilya Repin
Ilya Yefimovich Repin (russian: Илья Ефимович Репин, translit=Il'ya Yefimovich Repin, p=ˈrʲepʲɪn); fi, Ilja Jefimovitš Repin ( – 29 September 1930) was a Russian painter, born in what is now Ukraine. He became one of the ...
also produced genre paintings.
In Germany,
Carl Spitzweg
Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romanticist painter, especially of genre subjects. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.
Life and career
Spitzweg was born in U ...
(1808–85) specialized in gently humorous genre scenes, and in Italy
Gerolamo Induno
Gerolamo Induno (13 December 1825 – 18 December 1890) was an Italian painter and soldier, best known for his military scenes. His older brother, Domenico, was also a well-known artist and they often worked together.
Biography
He was born in Mi ...
(1825–90) painted scenes of military life. Subsequently, the
Impressionists, as well as such 20th-century artists as
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...
,
Itshak Holtz
Itshak Jack Holtz ( he, יצחק הולץ; also known as Itzhak Holtz and Issac Holtz; 1925-2018)Dovid Margolin, "Gazing Toward Yerushalayim: The life and art of Itshak Holtz," ''Hamodia, Inyan'', August 22, 2011, pp. 30-35. was a Polish-born and ...
,
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.
![George Caleb Bingham 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/George_Caleb_Bingham_001.jpg)
In Belgium, the nationalism of the new state born in 1830 gave rise to history painting glorifying the past of the nation and genre painting returning to the models of 17th-century. Examples of artists working in this retro style include
Ferdinand de Braekeleer
Ferdinand de Braekeleer ( Antwerp, 12 February 1792 – Antwerp, 16 May 1883), sometimes spelled as Ferdinand de Braeckeleer, was a Flemish painter and printmaker. ,
and
Jan August Hendrik Leys. Under the influence of foreign artistic movements such a realism, Belgian artists in the second half of the 19th century were able to break away from the old traditions and create a new format for their genre paintings. An example is
Henri de Braekeleer
Henri Jean Augustin de Braekeleer (11 June 1840 – 20 July 1888) was a Belgian painter. He was born and died in Antwerp. He was trained in drawing by his father Ferdinand de Braekeleer, a well-known genre painter, and his uncle Jan August Hend ...
who used light and colour to infuse his intimist genre scenes with a modernist spirit.
The first true genre painter in the United States was the German immigrant
John Lewis Krimmel
John Lewis Krimmel (May 30, 1786July 15, 1821), sometimes called "the American Hogarth," was United States, America's first painter of Genre art, genre scenes. Born in Germany, he immigrated to Philadelphia in 1809 and soon became a member of th ...
. He was influenced, at least initially, by English artists such as William Hogarth and Scottish painters such as
David Wilkie and produced gently humorous scenes of life in Philadelphia from 1812–21. Other notable 19th-century genre painters from the United States include
George Caleb Bingham,
William Sidney Mount, and
Eastman Johnson.
Harry Roseland
Harry Herman Roseland (c. 1867–1950) was an American painter of genre in the early 20th century. He was known primarily for paintings centered on poor African-Americans. Roseland himself was white.
Roseland was largely self-taught, and never t ...
focused on scenes of poor African Americans in the post-American Civil War South, and
John Rogers (1829–1904) was a sculptor whose small genre works, mass-produced in cast plaster, were immensely popular in America.
Harry Roseland
at Encore Editions The works of American painter Ernie Barnes (1938–2009) and those of illustrator Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...
(1894–1978) exemplify a more modern type of genre painting.[American Scenes of Everyday Life, 1840–1910]
at the Metropoliton Museum
Genre in other traditions
Japanese ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
prints are rich in depictions of people at leisure and at work, as are Korean paintings, particularly those created in the 18th century. Notable Korean painters include Kim Hongdo
Gim Hongdo (김홍도, born 1745, died 1806?-1814?), also known as Kim Hong-do, most often styled Danwon (단원), was a full-time painter of the Joseon period of Korea. He was together a pillar of the establishment and a key figure of the new ...
, Sin Yun-bok
Shin Yun-bok, better known by his pen name Hyewon (1758–1813), was a Korean painter of the Joseon Dynasty. Like his contemporaries Danwon and Geungjae, he is known for his realistic depictions of daily life in his time. His genre paintings ar ...
, and Kim Deuk-sin
Kim Deuk-sin (1754–1822) was the son of a royal court painter, Kim Eungri, and followed in his father's footsteps. He entered royal service as a member of the Dohwaseo, the official painters of the Joseon court. Kim Deuk-sin is known for his p ...
; notable Japanese printmakers include Katsushika Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...
, Tōshūsai Sharaku, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Kitagawa Utamaro
Kitagawa Utamaro ( ja, 喜多川 歌麿; – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his ''bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-headed ...
.
Gallery of Flemish genre paintings
File:Jan Sanders van Hemessen 002.jpg, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, ''Brothel scene'', c. 1545–50
File:David Teniers (II) - Tavern Scene - WGA22082.jpg, David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile arti ...
, ''Tavern scene'', 1640
File:Joos van Craesbeeck - Soldiers and Women.jpg, Joos van Craesbeeck
Joos van Craesbeeck (''c''. 1605/06 – ''c''. 1660) was a Flemish baker and a painter who played an important role in the development of Flemish genre art, genre painting in the mid-17th century through his tavern scenes and dissolute portraits. ...
, ''Soldiers and Women'', 1640s
File:Gillis van Tilborgh - Elegant Company.jpg, Gillis van Tilborgh
Gillis van Tilborgh or Gillis van Tilborch (''c''. 1625 – ''c''. 1678) was a Flemish painter who worked in various genres including portraits, 'low-life' and elegant genre paintings and paintings of picture galleries. He became the keeper of ...
, ''Elegant Company'', between 1655 and 1675
Gallery of Dutch 17th-century genre paintings
File:Hendrick Avercamp - Ice Scene - 785 - Rijksmuseum.jpg, Hendrick Avercamp
Hendrick Avercamp (January 27, 1585 (bapt.) – May 15, 1634 (buried)) was a Dutch painter during the Dutch Golden Age of painting. He was one of the earliest landscape painters of the 17th-century Dutch school, he specialized in painting th ...
painted almost exclusively winter scenes.
File:Gerard van Honthorst - Der liederliche Student - 391 - Bavarian State Painting Collections.jpg, Gerard van Honthorst
Gerard van Honthorst (Dutch: ''Gerrit van Honthorst''; 4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch Golden Age painting, Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the nickn ...
, ''Merry Company'', 1623, using the chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
technique typical of Utrecht Caravaggism
Utrecht Caravaggism ( nl, Utrechtse caravaggisten) refers to the work of a group of artists who were from, or had studied in, the Dutch city of Utrecht, and during their stay in Rome during the early seventeenth century had become distinctly infl ...
File:Judith Leyster A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel.jpg, Judith Leyster
Judith Jans Leyster (also Leijster; baptised July 28, 1609Molenaer, JudithNational Gallery of Art website. Accessed February 1, 2014. – February 10, 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Her work was h ...
, ''A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel'',
File:Pieter de Hooch - The Visit.jpg, Pieter de Hooch, ''The Visit'',
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Genre Works
Painting
Visual arts genres