Visual Arts
The term "genre" is much used in the history and criticism of visual art, but in art history has meanings that overlap rather confusingly. Genre painting is a term for paintings where the main subject features human figures to whom no specific identity attaches - in other words, figures are not portraits, characters from a story, or allegorical personifications. These are distinguished from staffage: incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting. Genre painting may also be used as a wider term covering genre painting proper, and other specialized types of paintings such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings.
The concept of the "hierarchy of genres" was a powerful one in artistic theory, especially between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a central role in academic art. The genres in hierarchical order are:
- History painting, including narrative religious mythological and allegorical subjects
- Portrait painting
- Genre painting or scenes of everyday life
- Landscape (landscapists were the "common footmen in the Army of Art" according to the Dutch theorist Samuel van Hoogstraten) and cityscape
- Animal painting
- Still life
Read more about this topic: Genre
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