
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different
genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
s in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.
In literature, the
epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale
Epic(s) ...
was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
in his ''Life of
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
'': "By the general consent of criticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions." Below that came
lyric poetry
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, t ...
, and comic poetry, with a similar ranking for
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
. The
novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
took a long time to establish a firm place in the hierarchy, doing so only as belief in any systematic hierarchy of forms expired in the 19th century.
In music,
lyrical settings of words were accorded a higher status than merely instrumental works, at least until the
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
period, and
opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
retained a superior status for much longer. The status of works also varies with the number of players and singers involved, with those written for large forces, which are certainly more difficult to write and more expensive to perform, given higher status. Any element of comedy reduced the status of a work, though, as in other art forms, often increased its popularity.
The hierarchies in
figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...
are those initially formulated for painting in 16th-century Italy, which held sway with little alteration until the early 19th century. These were formalized and promoted by the
academies in Europe between the 17th century and the modern era, of which the most influential became the French
Académie de peinture et de sculpture, which held a central role in
Academic art
Academic art, academicism, or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. This method extended its influence throughout the Western world over several centuries, from its origins i ...
. The fully developed hierarchy distinguished between:
*
History painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...
, including historically important, religious, mythological, or allegorical subjects
*
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a Hierarchy of genres, genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commissio ...
*
Genre painting
Genre painting (or petit genre) is the painting of genre art, which depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity ca ...
or scenes of everyday life
*
Landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
and cityscape art (landscapists were called "common
footmen in the Army of Art" by the Dutch theorist
Samuel van Hoogstraten)
*
Animal painting
*
Still life
A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
The hierarchy was based on a distinction between art that made an intellectual effort to "render visible the universal essence of things" (''imitare'' in Italian) and that which merely consisted of "mechanical copying of particular appearances" (''ritrarre'').
Idealism
Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...
was privileged over
realism in line with
Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy.
The term is mostly used within the field of painting, and from the
High Renaissance
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...
onwards, by which time painting had asserted itself as the highest form of art. This had not been the case in
Medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional ar ...
and the art-commissioning sectors of society took a considerable period to fully accept this view. The
Raphael Cartoons
The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoon paintings on paper for tapestries, surviving from a set of ten cartoons, designed by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–1516. Commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel in the ...
are a clear example of the continuing status of
tapestry
Tapestry is a form of Textile arts, textile art which was traditionally Weaving, woven by hand on a loom. Normally it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and difficult to make, so most historical piece ...
, the most expensive form of art in the 16th century. In the Early
Medieval period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
, lavish pieces of metalwork had typically been the most highly regarded, and valuable materials remained an important ingredient in the appreciation of art until at least the 17th century. Until the 19th century, the most extravagant
objets d'art
In art history, the French term objet d'art (; ) describes an ornamental work of art, and the term objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish ...
remained more expensive, both new and on the art market, than all but a few paintings. Classical writings which valued the supreme skills of individual artists were influential, as well as developments in art which allowed the Renaissance artist to demonstrate their skill and invention to a greater degree than was usually possible in the Middle Ages.
Renaissance art
The hierarchy grew out of the struggle to gain acceptance of painting as one of the
liberal arts
Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...
, and then controversies to establish an equal or superior status within them with
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
and
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. These matters were considered of great importance by artist-theorists such as
Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, Catholic priest, priest, linguistics, linguist, philosopher, and cryptography, cryptographer; he epitomised the natu ...
,
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...
, and
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work ''Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ideol ...
. Against the sculptors, Leonardo argued that the intellectual effort necessary to create an illusion of three-dimensionality made the painters' art superior to that of the sculptor, who could do so merely by recording appearances. In his ''
De Pictura'' ("About Painting") of 1441, Alberti argued that multi-figure history painting was the noblest form of art, as being the most difficult, which required mastery of all the others, because it was a visual form of history, and because it had the greatest potential to move the viewer. He placed emphasis on the ability to depict the interactions between the figures by gesture and expression.
Theorists of the Early and High Renaissance accepted the importance of representing nature closely, at least until the later writings of
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
, who was strongly influenced by
neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...
. By the time of
Mannerist
Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...
theorists such as
Gian Paolo Lomazzo and
Federico Zuccari
Federico Zuccaro, also known as Federico Zuccari and Federigo Zucchero ( July/August 1609), was an Italian painter, draughtsman, architect and writer. He worked in various cities in Italy, as well as in other countries such as Spain, France, t ...
(both also painters) this was far less of a priority. Both emphasized beauty as "something which was directly infused into the mind of man from the mind of God, and existed there independent of any sense-impressions", a view bound to further reduce the status of works depending on realism. In practice the hierarchy represented little break with either medieval and classical thought, except to place secular history painting in the same class as religious art, and to distinguish (not always clearly) between static iconic religious subjects and narrative figure scenes, giving the latter a higher status. Ideas of
decorum also fed into the hierarchy; comic, sordid or merely frivolous subjects or treatment ranked lower than elevated and moral ones.
During the Renaissance landscape, genre scenes and still lifes hardly existed as established genres, so discussion of the status or importance of different types of painting was mainly concerned with history subjects as against portraits, initially small and unpretentious, and iconic portrait-type religious and mythological subjects. For most artists some commitment to realism was necessary in a portrait; few could take the high-handed approach of Michelangelo, who largely ignored the actual appearance of the
Medici
The House of Medici ( , ; ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first consolidated power in the Republic of Florence under Cosimo de' Medici and his grandson Lorenzo "the Magnificent" during the first half of the 15th ...
in his
Medici Chapel sculptures, supposedly saying that in a thousand years no one would know the difference (a retort
Gainsborough is also said to have used, with a shorter timeframe).
Many portraits were extremely flattering, which could be justified by an appeal to idealism as well as the sitter's vanity; the theorist
Armenini claimed in 1587 that "portraits by excellent artists are considered to be painted with better style
'maniera''and greater perfection than others, but more often than not they are less good likenesses". On the other hand, numbers of courtly sitters and their parents, suitors or courtiers complained that painters entirely failed to do justice to the reality of the sitter.
The question of decorum in religious art became the focus of intense effort by the Catholic Church after the
decrees on art of the Council of Trent of 1563. Paintings depicting biblical events as if they were occurring in the households of wealthy contemporary Italians were attacked, and soon ceased. Until the challenge of
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
at the end of the century, religious art became thoroughly ideal.
17th and 18th century art
The new genres of landscape, genre painting, animal painting and still life came into their own in the 17th century, with the virtual cessation of religious painting in Protestant countries, and the expansion of picture buying to the prosperous middle class. Although similar developments occurred in all advanced European countries, they were most evident in the enormously productive schools of
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence.
The new Dutch Republi ...
and
Flemish Baroque painting. However no theorists emerged to champion the new genres, and the relatively small amount of Dutch theoretical writing, by
,
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten,
Gerard de Lairesse and others, was mostly content to rehash Italian views, so that their writings can seem oddly at variance with the Dutch art actually being produced in their day.
The hierarchy was mostly accepted by artists, and even genre specialists such as
Jan Steen
Jan Havickszoon Steen ( – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
Life
...
,
Karel Dujardin
Karel Dujardin (September 27, 1626November 20, 1678) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Although he did a few portraits and a few history paintings of religious subjects, most of his work is small Italianate landscape scenes with animals and peasan ...
and
Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...
produced a few history paintings, which were better paid when commissions could be obtained, but in general far harder to sell. The unhappy history of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
's last history commission, ''
The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis'' (1661) illustrates both his commitment to the form and the difficulties he had in finding an audience. In Flanders, as well as great quantities of pure genre works, there was a trend towards history paintings with a major genre element, whether animals, landscape or still life. Often the different elements were painted by different artists;
Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...
and
Frans Snyders often co-operated in this way.
The size of paintings, and very often the prices they realized, increasingly tended to reflect their position in the hierarchy in this period. Until the Romantic period the price and saleability of what were essentially landscapes could be increased by adding small mythological or religious figures, creating a ''landscape with...'', a practice that went back to the beginnings of landscape painting in the Flemish
world landscapes of
Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier ( – 5 October 1524), was a Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Flemish Renaissance painter of History painting, history and Landscape painting, landscape subjects. He was Flanders, Flemish, from the ar ...
in the early 16th century.
Flemish Baroque painting was the last school to often paint the lowest genres at a large size, but usually combined with figure subjects.
An influential formulation of 1667 by
André Félibien
André Félibien (May 161911 June 1695), ''sieur des Avaux et de Javercy'', was a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.
Biography
Félibien was born at Chartres. At the age of fourteen he went to Pari ...
, a historiographer, architect and theoretician of French classicism became the classic statement of the theory for the 18th century:
Celui qui fait parfaitement des païsages est au-dessus d'un autre qui ne fait que des fruits, des fleurs ou des coquilles. Celui qui peint des animaux vivants est plus estimable que ceux qui ne représentent que des choses mortes & sans mouvement; & comme la figure de l'homme est le plus parfait ouvrage de Dieu sur la Terre, il est certain aussi que celui qui se rend l'imitateur de Dieu en peignant des figures humaines, est beaucoup plus excellent que tous les autres ... un Peintre qui ne fait que des portraits, n'a pas encore cette haute perfection de l'Art, & ne peut prétendre à l'honneur que reçoivent les plus sçavans. Il faut pour cela passer d'une seule figure à la représentation de plusieurs ensemble; il faut traiter l'histoire & la fable; il faut représenter de grandes actions comme les historiens, ou des sujets agréables comme les Poëtes; & montant encore plus haut, il faut par des compositions allégoriques, sçavoir couvrir sous le voile de la fable les vertus des grands hommes, & les mystères les plus relevez.Books.google.co.uk
translation
He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, flowers or seashells. He who paints living animals is more estimable than those who only represent dead things without movement, and as man is the most perfect work of God on the earth, it is also certain that he who becomes an imitator of God in representing human figures, is much more excellent than all the others ... a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honour due to the most skilled. For that he must pass from representing a single figure to several together; history and myth must be depicted; great events must be represented as by historians, or like the poets, subjects that will please, and climbing still higher, he must have the skill to cover under the veil of myth the virtues of great men in allegories, and the mysteries they reveal".
Allegorical painting was raised above other types of
history painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...
; together they were the ''grand genre'', including paintings with religious, mythological, historical, literary, or allegorical subjects—they embodied some interpretation of life or conveyed a moral or intellectual message. The gods and goddesses from the ancient mythologies represented different aspects of the human psyche, figures from religions represented different ideas, and history, like the other sources, represented a dialectic or play of ideas. Subjects with several figures ranked higher than single figures. For a long time, especially during the
French Revolution, history painting often focused on depiction of the heroic male nude; though this waned in the 19th century.
After history painting came, in order of decreasing worth:
portraits, scenes of everyday life (called ''scènes de genre'', or "
genre painting
Genre painting (or petit genre) is the painting of genre art, which depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity ca ...
", and also ''petit genre'' to contrast it with the ''grande genre''),
landscapes, animal painting, and finally
still life
A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
s. In his formulation, such paintings were inferior because they were merely reportorial pictures without moral force or artistic imagination. Genre paintings—neither ideal in style, nor elevated in subject—were admired for their skill, ingenuity, and even humour, but never confused with high art.
The hierarchy of genres also had a corresponding hierarchy of formats: large format for history paintings, small format for still lifes. This had occasionally been breached in the past, especially in large Flemish works, and the monumental ''
The Young Bull'' of the Dutch artist
Paulus Potter
Paulus Potter (; 20 November 1625 (baptised) – 17 January 1654 (buried)) was a Dutch painter
Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid sur ...
, as well as the larger of the two ''
Butchers' Shop'' canvases of
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci ( , , ; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother Agostino Carracci, Agostino and cousin Ludovico Carracci, Ludovico (with whom the Ca ...
. But for the most part the relative prices obtainable for the different genres ensured the hierarchy of size also; it would not have been economic to paint a very large subject from the lower genres, except for commissioned group portraits. Rubens' largest landscapes were painted for his own houses.
The use of the pictorial elements of painting such as line and color to convey an ultimate unifying theme or idea was regarded as the highest expression of art, and an idealism was adopted in art, whereby forms seen in nature would be generalized, and in turn subordinated to the unity of the artwork. It aimed at universal truth through the imitation of nature. Later dissenting theorists, such as
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...
, held that this focus on
allegory
As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...
was faulty and based on a wrong analogy between the plastic arts and poetry rooted in the
Horatian dictum
ut pictura poesis ("as is painting so is poetry").
The British painter
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...
in his ''Discourses'' of the 1770s and 1780s, reiterated the argument for still life to the lowest position in the hierarchy of genres on the grounds that it interfered with the painter's access to central forms, those products of the mind's generalising powers. At the summit reigned history painting, centred on the human body: familiarity with the forms of the body permitted the mind of the painter, by comparing innumerable instances of the human form, to abstract from it those typical or central features that represented the body's essence or ideal.
Though Reynolds agreed with Félibien about the natural order of the genres, he held that an important work from any genre of painting could be produced under the hand of genius: "Whether it is the human figure, an animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius. What was said of
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
, that he threw even the dung about the ground with an air of dignity, may be applied to
Titian
Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Ti ...
; whatever he touched, however naturally mean, and habitually familiar, by a kind of magic he invested with grandeur and importance."
Though European academies usually strictly insisted on this hierarchy, over their reign, many artists were able to invent new genres which raised the lower subjects to the importance of history painting. Reynolds himself achieved this by inventing the portraiture style that was called the
Grand Manner, where he flattered his sitters by likening them to mythological characters.
Jean-Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised 10 October 1684died 18 July 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French Painting, painter and Drawing, draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour ...
invented a genre that was called
fêtes galantes, where he would show scenes of courtly amusements taking place in Arcadian settings; these often had a poetic and allegorical quality which were considered to ennoble them.
Claude Lorrain practised a genre called the
ideal landscape, where a composition would be loosely based on nature and dotted with classical ruins as a setting for a biblical or historical theme. It artfully combined landscape and history painting, thereby legitimising the former. It is synonymous with the term ''historical landscape'' which received official recognition in the Académie française when a for the genre was established in 1817. Finally,
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was able to create still life paintings that were considered to have the charm and beauty as to be placed alongside the best allegorical subjects. However, aware of this hierarchy,
Chardin began including figures in his work in about 1730, mainly women and children.
19th century
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
greatly increased the status of landscape painting, beginning in
British art and more gradually that of genre painting, which began to influence history painting in the anecdotal treatments of the
Style Troubadour in France and equivalent trends elsewhere. Landscapes grew in size to reflect their new importance, often matching history paintings, especially in the American
Hudson River School and Russian painting. Animal paintings also increased in size and dignity, but the full-length portrait, even of royalty, became mostly reserved for large public buildings.
Until the middle of the 19th century,
women
A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl.
Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...
were largely unable to paint history paintings as they were not allowed to participate in the final process of artistic training—that of life drawing, in order to protect their modesty. They could work from reliefs, prints, casts and from the Old Masters, but not from the nude model. Instead they were encouraged to participate in the lower painting forms such as portraiture, landscape and genre. These were considered more feminine in that they appealed to the eye rather than the mind.
Toward the end of the 19th century, painters and critics began to rebel against the many rules of the Académie française, including the status accorded to
history painting
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...
, which was beginning to be bought mainly by public bodies of one sort or another, as private buyers preferred subjects from lower down the hierarchy. In Britain the
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, ...
movement tried to revitalize the history painting, with mixed success; other movements made similar efforts. Many Pre-Raphaelites ended their careers mainly painting other subjects. New artistic movements included the
Realists and
Impressionists, which each sought to depict the present moment and daily life as observed by the eye, and unattached from historical significance; the Realists often choosing genre painting and still life, while the Impressionists would most often focus on landscapes.
Notes
References
*Bass, Laura L.,''The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain'', Penn State Press, 2008, ,
*
Blunt Anthony, ''Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660'', 1940 (refs to 1985 edn),
OUP
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
,
*Campbell, Lorne, ''Renaissance Portraits, European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries'', Yale,
*Fuchs, RH; ''Dutch painting''; 1978, Thames and Hudson, London,
* Lee, Rensselaer W., ''Ut Pictura Poesis, The Humanistic Theory of Painting'', Norton Simon, New York, 1967
Rensselaer W. Lee, ''Ut Pictura Poesis'' Online text of book*
Reitlinger, Gerald; ''The Economics of Taste, Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760–1960, Barrie and Rockliffe, London, 1961
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hierarchy Of Genres
Visual arts genres
History of art
Painting
Visual arts theory
Hierarchy