Genre (art)

Genre, in art, is a term used to characterize paintings of everyday life. The subject of a genre painting is usually some cottage, village, or rural scene. Genre painting is not particularly modern. Pliny tells of a Grecian painter who won note during the reign of Alexander the Great by painting barbers, shoemakers, and the like at their work. Rembrandt in the Netherlands, Murillo in Spain, and Hogarth in London, were leaders of schools of painters that chose homely, everyday scenes. Of later artists noted for genre painting, Millais and Millet may be named. The reader should avoid the notion that genre paintings are inferior. Burns and Whittier chose everyday topics, but they are not humble poets. So, in the painter's art, genius glorifies the commonplace.