Genres of Painting
Genres of painting classify pictures by subject matter — portrait, landscape, still life, and history painting — categories long ranked in an academic hierarchy.
Definition
Categories of painting defined by subject matter, including portraiture, landscape, still life, and history painting, each with its own conventions, expectations, and historical standing within the tradition.
Scope
This area covers the principal subject genres of painting and their conventions and history: portraiture, landscape, still life, and history and religious painting, together with the academic hierarchy of genres that ranked them, and the later breakdown of that hierarchy in the modern period.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How are paintings classified by subject into distinct genres?
- What was the academic hierarchy of genres, and how did it rank subjects?
- How did each genre develop its own conventions and aims?
- Why and how did the hierarchy of genres break down in the modern era?
Key concepts
- Subject genre
- Hierarchy of genres
- History painting
- Portraiture
- Landscape
- Still life
Key theories
- Hierarchy of genres
- The academic doctrine, formalized in the seventeenth century, that ranked subject genres from history painting at the top through portraiture and genre scenes to landscape and still life, reflecting the perceived intellectual ambition of each.
- Revaluing the lower genres
- The art-historical reassessment, exemplified by Norman Bryson's study of still life, that the so-called lesser genres carry rich cultural meaning and merit serious attention rather than dismissal as minor subjects.
History
The classification of painting by subject and its ranking into a hierarchy of genres was articulated in French academic theory, notably by Andre Felibien in the seventeenth century, placing history painting above portraiture, genre, landscape, and still life. This hierarchy guided academic training and patronage for two centuries before being overturned as nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists elevated landscape, still life, and everyday subjects.
Debates
- Validity of the genre hierarchy
- Whether the academic ranking of genres reflects real differences in ambition and meaning, or an arbitrary value system that modern art and scholarship have rightly dismantled.
Key figures
- Andre Felibien
- Ernst Gombrich
- Norman Bryson
Related topics
Seminal works
- gombrich1995
- davies2011
- bryson1990
Frequently asked questions
- What is the hierarchy of genres?
- It is the academic ranking, formalized in the seventeenth century, of painting subjects from history painting at the top down through portraiture, genre scenes, landscape, and still life, according to their supposed intellectual seriousness.
- Why is still life sometimes called a lower genre?
- In the academic hierarchy still life ranked at the bottom because it depicted inanimate objects rather than noble human action, though later scholarship has shown how rich in meaning the genre can be.