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To me, genre painting is something of an enigma. The Dictionary of Art and Artists defines it as a type of painting that denotes "the life of ordinary people" and dates it from the works of Dutch artists in the 17th Century.
This source does not include pictures that tell a story or that have persons who can be identified. Some experts exclude religious and other themes. Also, it was described as a forerunner of still life paintings and as including them.
However, genre painting by any definition is of interest because, for the first time, art depicting scenes of everyday life and everyday people moved into the arena of greatness.
Since experts generally agree that it was in 17th century Holland that genre painting received its first success, let us begin our story there.
During that era, a group of painters called "Little Dutch Masters" had begun painting homes, streets and people involved in everyday activities. One of them, Jon Vermeer, (1632-1657), became known for the tonal quality of his work; for his use of the camera obscura - a device using light to throw an image of a scene onto paper so the artist could copy or trace it - and for his "organization of pictorial space," by which the eye of the beholder was drawn into his scene.
The Love Letter (c.1670) is a prime example of his structural philosophy.
Peter de Hooch and Jan Steen were also noted artists in this group.
Genre painting achieved the status of a specific type here in America in the mid-1850s. Like other mediums, politics and social changes had brought in their wake a growing interest in the "common man," making him and his life the focus of both literature and art.
In literature, it was writers like Washington Irving, Henry W. Longfellow and Mark Twain. In art, it was painters such as John L. Krimmel, William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer and others who were painting ordinary places and people engaging in ordinary activities.
In the west, miners and cowboys were often featured. Examples include William S. Mount's Eel Spearing at Setauket (1845) and George Caleb Bingham's The County Election (1851-52). Another familiar genre painting is Eastman Johnson's Negro Life in the South, later renamed Old Kentucky Home (1859).
Johnson, born in Lovell, Maine, has been called America's most famous genre painter. He began drawing as a teen and, by his early 20s, had painted portraits of many prominent American statesmen. The young artist then spent four years studying art in The Hague and some time in Paris before returning to the U.S. to paint contemporary American life.
In an article about Johnson published in Art and Antiques (April, 2000), writer Stephen May called him "the quintessential interpreter of American themes and...a towering figure in late 19th century American art."
The themes and flavor of genre paintings shifted over the years as worldly events brought social change and unrest. For example, before the Civil War, historians tell us that paintings had focused on people involved in conviviality - working and playing together. The war engendered paintings in which the subjects appear to be acting alone - thinking their own thoughts - even though doing so in concert with others.
An example is the painting of another New Englander, Winslow Homer. His Snap the Whip (1872) depicts a group of boys whose attention is so concentrated on their game, it's as if they are acting independently.
One doesn't hear or read much about genre art today, although many contemporary artists paint works that are genre in content. A recent issue of the New Yorker magazine reported on an art auction at Christie's in which "genre scenes" were being featured. One such scene, a painting by Winslow Homer, The Last Days of Harvest, was reported to be "a highlight of the auction."
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