A genre painting is a scene of everyday life, such as ordinary people doing everyday activities. It centres everyday actions on the canvas and may include specific individual scenes, larger groups of people, or so-called “hidden object images.” In many paintings, no identifiable personalities are depicted; rather, archetypes of a social class or community can be shown.
It might show people cleaning clothes or shopping in a market, a woman reading a book, a maid washing dishes or children dancing and others. It might be set indoors or outdoors, in a city or countryside, and may show the everyday life activities of many different classes and cultures of people.
What Is a Genre Painting?
The word ‘genre’ is used for different types of broad subjects. In the seventeenth century, five types or ‘genres’ of painting were established: history painting, portrait painting, landscape painting, genre painting (scenes of everyday life), and still life.
The Dutch Golden Age saw the introduction of genre painting. The art establishment saw the genres as having varying levels of significance compared to history painting (the painting of scenes from history, the Bible, or literature).
A genre painting is also called a morality painting. Unlike other forms of art, a genre painting has no literal portraits or mythological characters. Genre paintings may be basic, non-serious or serious, sentimental, or funny, and they carry social messages and, sometimes, moral lessons. There are many possibilities, as a wide variety of scenes can be depicted in the paintings.
Whilst realistic in their approach, genre paintings often hide moral messages within their composition. General themes include morality, social decline, domesticity or religious allegory.
History of Genre Painting
The modern genre painting was initially made in the Netherlands and Flanders in the 16th and 17th centuries. Genre painting became hugely popular in the Victorian age following the success of the brilliantly skilled works of Sir David Wilkie.
The scenes of Genre Paintings emphasised realism and morality. The unique artworks offered a visual insight into the lives of patrons and peasants of the 17th century and beyond, providing a rich historical context for art enthusiasts and students.
Characteristics of Genre Painting
In fine art painting, the term genre painting (also called genre works) refers to pictures depicting situations and scenes of everyday life. Whatever the precise content, the scenes show domestic settings, markets, and interiors where people are typically portrayed in a non-idealized way, and the characters are not endowed with any heroic or dramatic attributes.
In general, the key feature of a genre painting is that the scene is presented in a non-idealised way, in contrast to the traditional classical approach of infusing scenes with gallant, noble, or dramatic characteristics. The most typical subjects were scenes of peasant life or drinking in taverns, which tended to be small in scale.
In Britain, William Hogarth’s modern moral subjects were a special genre in their openness, often hitting social satire. Subjects typically include domestic settings, interiors, mealtimes, celebrations, tavern or peasant scenes, markets and other street scenes.
As in the genre scenes of the 16th and 17th centuries, on closer inspection, it immediately becomes clear that this is a perfectly staged composition. We see no background; only a light source from the right locates the person sitting on the chair in the room.
This artistic arrangement, similar to a theatre stage, emphasises the aesthetics of the everyday. Even today, artists appreciate the aesthetics of the commoners, and this is what makes art interesting and valuable.
Genre Painting Art History Definition
The term Genre itself is slightly confusing. In art history, 'genre' means 'type' or 'category' and is used to portray broader subjects of painting, such as history or still life.
Genre painting began in northern Europe in the 17th century with energetic and humorous paintings of peasant life like those of Jan and Pieter Brueghel and Frans Hals. Dutch and Flemish genre paintings don’t always take this tone; however, nearly every calm and elegant scene by Vermeer can be characterised as a genre painting.
Perhaps because it is so flexible, genre painting became popular throughout the Euro-American world, often showing satirical, sentimental, or moralising aspects depending on the local audience.
Genre Painting Examples
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the early genre paintings in Flanders and the Netherlands portrayed society, the habits and customs, the everyday works and activities, and the lifestyle of the commoner in detail, more in terms of their inadequacies, focusing more on negative examples and taking on a moral role. For example, scenes of upper-class leisure and romance are depicted in idealised settings in Chardin’s Soap Bubbles or Watteau’s Fetes Galantes.
These paintings were linked to the Reformation movements that emerged in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 16th century. Above all, Calvinism, with its strict puritanical canon of rules, played a major role in the emergence of these moral doctrines.
One of the most extreme examples of genre was an oil on panel that had split in two. It was a copy of a Gabriel Metsu piece entitled Young Woman Composing Music, 1662-1663. The original painting is on display at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
The artwork shows a beautiful young woman writing a song while another plays the lute. A young man stands behind her, and one presumed theme of the piece is that it shows a harmonious relationship.
Brabant-born Pieter Brueghel the Elder created some of the most famous moralising genre scenes of the 16th century. He shows peasants celebrating, drunk, or working people. Many such pieces were eye-catching. Some depict crude acts of anonymous farmers, and they were unique for the audience of that time.
Another notable artist in the genre painting is Johannes Vermeer, a Dutchman who had a less directly instructive way. He painted mysterious and enigmatic sides of society, like young women, lighting situations, architecture, fabrics, and materials of all kinds.
Artists like the Dutchman Johannes Vermeer had a less directly instructive way. They painted mysterious and enigmatic sides of society, like young women, lighting situations, architecture, fabrics, and materials of all kinds.
The Contemporary Genre Painting
Contemporary Genre Painting depicts everyday scenes that could be considered genre scenes, the ones we can identify with much more today. In the Domestic Interiors series (2016), British artist John Macaulay gives us an insight into the homes of Great Britain, where genre painting is a means of self-irony. This contemporary take on genre painting shows its enduring relevance and evolution in the art world.
The work Tour de Table (2017) by the French painter Marc Dailly shows a family dinner. The gestures and posture of the depicted children and adults do not appear posed but rather natural, like a snapshot. The paintings show astonishing wit and staged aesthetics.
Types of Genre Painting
The five categories of fine art paintings are –
- History Painting showing religious, historical or allegorical work with a moral message.
- Portrait art includes individual, group or self-portraits.
- Genre painting is where you can see scenes of everyday life.
- Landscape Painting shows scenic views. A typical landscape does not contain a significant figurative element.
- till-life painting is the arrangement of domestic objects or everyday items.
As a general rule of thumb, genre paintings typically portray normal events in which individual figures usually play an important role. An 'interior' or 'still-life' is really a domestic scene containing an artificial arrangement of items (including, more rarely, a figure). However, one could argue that The Little Street (1658) by Vermeer was both an urban landscape and a genre painting.
Who Is the Father of Genre Painting?
Pieter Bruegel called the Elder (Breda, c. 1525-Brussels, 1569), is considered to be the father of genre painting. He was a famous artist in the Netherlands in the 16th century, and he had a strong influence on the painting style of the era. Later, his sons, Pieter and Jan, became the ancestors of a dynasty that survived into the 18th century. Bruegel pioneered “genre painting,” as he chose to depict ordinary people doing their everyday work.
In the later centuries, the works of seventeenth-century Dutch artists such as Rembrandt became the basis of realism in nineteenth-century France and beyond.
Genre Painting Artists
Vermeer is the most celebrated of all Dutch genre painters. Other famous Genre painting artists were Pieter Bruegel, Edward Hopper, Degas, and Jean-Francois Millet.
One of the members of the Barbizon landscape school in France, Jean-Francois Millet, is known for his plein-air genre paintings that consider the backbreaking rural routines of the French peasantry. His masterpieces include The Winnower, The Gleaners, The Sower, Man With a Hoe, and The Angelus. Some of these are highly controversial due to the figures and the intrinsic message presented.
Christian Millet emphasised the Bible's depiction of man's fight with the soil, and its significance was neither social nor political but essentially religious. He received recognition for this and had a huge influence on younger artists, including Eugene Boudin, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso.
Some of his genre painting examples include
-The Winnower (1848) oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
- The Sower (1850) oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- The Gleaners (1857) oil on canvas, Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Edgar Degas worked on contemporary subjects in his early 30s and remained a classical-style Impressionist. He preferred to focus on figurative genre paintings, mostly of ballet classes and dancers and other scenes of everyday life, featuring in-depth women's activities. He was known for figure drawing and was one of the most significant genre artists of the 19th century.
Some of his genre painting examples include –
- Absinthe (1876) oil on canvas, Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- Prima Ballerina (1877) pastel on paper, Musee d'Orsay, Paris
- Blue Dancers (1898) pastel on paper, Puskin Museum, Moscow
Edward Hopper was a New York-born painter who spent much of his life painting ordinary people who were struggling to make the best of life, whether at a hotel, automat, diner, or gas station. His pictures depicted stories, and viewers had to discover what was happening through the painting.
He made amazing, detailed facial expressions and figurative positions depicting relationships and cleverly used accurate light sources and directions to enhance the dramatic effect.
Some of his genre painting examples include –
- The Automat (1927) oil on canvas, Des Moines Art Centre
- Gas (1940) oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art
- Nighthawks (1942) oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was one of the Flemish genre painting artists known for his contribution to the genre. This painting depicted village life, peasants, even drunkenness, and various other social issues. He was named "Peasant" Bruegel due to his subject matter.
Some of Pieter Bruegel’s works include –
- The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) Kunsthistorisches Museum
- Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) Gemaldegalerie, SMPK, Berlin
- The Massacre of the Innocents (c.1565-7) K.M., Vienna
Jan Vermeer was one of the most famous genre painting artists who created rare works of Dutch realism. He created almost 35 paintings, all masterpieces. His works used yellows and whites, showing sensitivity to the expressions, poses, and arrangements of his subjects. However, he failed to achieve financial success and was in huge debt at the time of his death.
Some of the Vermeer's genre painting examples that rank on top include –
- Girl Asleep at a Table (c.1657) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- The Milkmaid (c.1658) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
- Man and Woman with a Wine Glass (c.1658) Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.
- Lady Seated at a Virginal (c.1673) National Gallery, London.
Contemporary Genre Painting
All paintings produced today can be considered contemporary paintings. Contemporary painting consists of the artistic practice of painting, in which paint or a different medium is applied onto a two-dimensional surface, from roughly 1960/1970 up to today. However, viewing paintings from the second half of the previous century as contemporary becomes a bit more complex.
In that case, the general rule is that contemporary painting starts where modern painting ends. Modern painting consists of paintings from Modernism- Realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, surrealism, and, last but not least, abstract expressionism.
The main characteristics of contemporary genre paintings are abstraction versus figuration, mixed media versus traditional media, post-conceptualism, art history, postmodernity, identity politics, new technologies, collage, iconicity, simulacra, the digital, eclecticism, absurdism, and appropriation.
The aesthetics of contemporary genre paintings are time-bound to the contemporary era or even more innovative if the subject matter is relevant to a contemporary context.
Thus, a painting can become contemporary by addressing a relevant aspect. For instance, if a painting tackles a recent historical event, such as 9/11, then the picture is relevant from a historical perspective.
Easy Genre Painting
Simpler genre painting emerged in the later eighteenth century. For example, the works of George Morland, Henry Robert Morland, and Francis Wheatley are easy genre paintings. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a new focus on genre painting emerged. Artists wanted to capture the excitement and fleeting nature of the modern life they saw around them in fast-growing metropolises such as London and Paris.
Later, the simple and slightly sentimental genre scenes of the Victorian era were replaced by bustling street scenes and glittering cafe interiors captured by impressionist artists such as Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet.
Reflections on the downsides of urbanisation also became a subject for artists. Camden Town Group painter Walter Sickert’s genre scenes from the early twentieth century included alienated couples in interiors – suggesting the loneliness people can feel in big cities.
List of Famous Genre Paintings
The beginnings of genre painting can be traced to the sixteenth-century peasant scenes of Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In the Netherlands during 1620–30, Frans Hals and Adriaen Brouwer were some of the first artists to paint genre scenes, often focusing on drinking and merrymaking.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569)
• Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) -Oil on oak panel, Gemaldegalerie, SMPK, Berlin.
• Hunters in the Snow (1565)- Oil on oak panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
• Peasant Wedding Feast (1568) - Oil on oak panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
• The Little Street (c.1657-58) - Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
• Soldier and a Laughing Girl (c.1658) - Frick Collection, New York.
• The Art of Painting: An Allegory (c.1666-73) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
• The Lacemaker (c.1669-1670) Louvre, Paris.
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717) Louvre, Paris; and Charlottenburg, Berlin.
Jean-Francois Millet (1814-75)
• The Angelus (1859) Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
• Man with a Hoe (1862) J.Paul Getty Museum, LA.
Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
• Hotel Room (1931) - Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano.
• Nighthawks (1942)- Art Institute of Chicago.
What Are the Seven Genres of Art?
The seven elements of art are line, shape, form, space, value, colour, and texture. The seven types of art are painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music, cinema, and theatre.
The 7 Contemporary fine art disciplines are
- Painting is the art of utilising pigmented colours by applying them to canvas, paper, or any other flat surface with or without a paintbrush and oil, acrylics, watercolours, or pastels. Painting can be made on chapel ceilings, glass windows, dumpster-dived couches, and various other surfaces using pencils, markers, paint markers, charcoal, crayons, and chalk.
- Sculpture is a visual art that involves shaping, moulding, and forming shapes. Figures can be made using varied materials, such as stone, wire, metal, bronze, ivory, wood, plastic, clay, and others.
- Architecture includes the design, planning, and construction of buildings based on different periods, such as Victorian, Gothic, Plantation, Colonial, or Greek Corthinian. Today, some common architectural styles that may be recognisable are American Craftsman, Mid-Century Modern, and High-tech architecture of the 21st century.
- Poetry is a form of literary writing that utilises rhythm or freeform styles in the expression of thoughts and feelings. It can be anything from social to political, romantic, and natural, syllables, lines, stanzas, and meter.
- Music is a form of rhythmic communication involving various instruments, such as percussion—woodwind, brass, and string
- Literature is the written word associated with a collection of written works.
- Dance and Theatre are often pre-choreographed into rhythmic, sequential, and cultural art. There are various kinds of dance- Ballet, Modern and Contemporary, Jazz, Ballroom, Hip-hop, Folk, and Performance Art.
What Does a Dutch Genre Painting Feature?
Women and letters prominently appear in the Dutch genre paintings from the second half of the seventeenth century. It captivates images and depicts women reading, writing, and receiving letters, and exchanging ideas. The contents of such paintings are rarely legible.
It invites curiosity and consideration, drawing the beholder into compact spaces. Such scenes show engagement with the written word and display a unique interest in representing the intellectual lives of the women.
The French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture established a hierarchy of genre art in the seventeenth century. The academy categorised genres into five categories, each ranked on the basis of its significance.
History painting was seen as the most important, followed by portraiture, genre painting, landscape, and still life. Landscape and still life did not include people, unlike history, which ranked at the top because it depicted grand events and was liked by scholars.
What Does a Genre Painting Depict?
Genre painting depicts scenes of everyday life. 'Genre painting, or painting scenes from everyday life, is a different category in which the scenes of life activities of common people were shown. Genre painting subjects included taverns, markets, and domestic interiors.
The fast-developing middle class in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century had money to spend on art to decorate their homes, and scenes mirroring their lives had huge appeal. The region's economic growth led to the rise of genre painting.
What Genre of Painting Grew in Importance in Northern European Renaissance Art?
From a party of smokers at a tavern to a housewife or workers quietly absorbed in work, or gaming soldiers to a scene of gallant courtship - genre painting enjoyed enormous popularity in northern Europe in this period where many of its practitioners made history paintings, paintings of biblical scenes, classical history, or mythology.
Renaissance is a genre in art, and it refers to the era in Europe from the 14th to the 16th century in which a new style of painting, sculpture, and architecture developed.
The hierarchy of genre art was firmly established and upheld by critics throughout Europe. Occupying the huge middle rung was the form known today as genre painting, but which then lacked a general term.
Despite their middling status in contemporary theory, the kleyne beuzelingen (little trifles) were produced in large quantity, and they fetched large sums—as did the works of the sought-after fijnschilder (fine painter) Gerrit Dou (1613–1675) and his pupil Frans van Mieris (1635–1681).
In the Netherlands, artists such as Willem Buytewech (1591–1624) and Frans Hals (1582/83–1666) pioneered the first generation of genre painting.
Paintings by Delft masters Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) and the less-known but accomplished Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) exhibit compositional clarity, balance, and order with painstakingly naturalistic lighting effects.
Outside the Netherlands, a group of Dutch and Flemish artists were active by about 1625 in Rome, painting scenes of contemporary life in the Roman countryside. These scenes were strongly influenced by their subject matter, realistic description of detail, and lighting effects by the Italian painter Caravaggio (1571–1610).
By the eighteenth century, the popularity of genre painting in the Netherlands was eclipsed somewhat by a taste for larger-scale decorative works. Genre themes, often inspired by earlier Dutch works, remained popular in the oeuvres of French artists Jean Siméon Chardin, Jean Baptiste Greuze and Jean Honoré Fragonard.
What Genre of Art Encompasses Painting, Drawing and Other Graphic Media?
Photorealism (or Hyper-Realism or Ultra-Realism) is a genre of art that includes painting, drawing, and other graphic media. It continues to be a realistic reproduction of a photograph onto another medium, typically a painting.
Photorealists create their paintings by combining a photograph or several photographs. However, the use of photographs in Photorealism faced intense protests when the movement began to gain momentum in the late 1960s, despite the fact that visual devices were used in the fifteenth century to aid artists with their work.
