Genres of painting

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. Sense of these words of French artist
Edgar Degas deeper than you think. Sometimes art makes people look on at first sight simple things in
different ways but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Among the huge number of genres of paintings the
following four types should be highlighted.

A still life is a painting that is without people. Still life appeared in religious art of the 15th century,
as in the "the Annunciation" by Roger van der Weyden, painted in 1435. Major painters like Rubens or
Rembrandt painted still lifes, each treating them according to his taste and temperament. The jolly
burgomasters particularly liked paintings of "lunches", with the result that a great many painters were to
specialize in painting them: Claesz, Hedda, Kalf and Davidsz de Heem. The fashion for painting still lifes
quickly spread throughout the Europe. Its most representative painters in France were Baugen in the 17th
century and Chardin in the 18th. The best-known Spanish still life painter is Luis Melendes. Knowing how to
paint a still life meant knowing how to reproduce objects as faithfully as possible. It requires great talent to
paint the velvety surface of a peach, the transparency of a crystal decanter or the dull shine of metal.

From the Middle Ages landscapes were used as backdrops in a great many paintings. They were
used to situate a person in the world and not in heaven, to show a precise location or to convey an abstract
idea. It wasn't until the 17th century that painters began to make nature the sole subject of their paintings.
The Dutch were the first to acquire a taste for small landscape paintings, preferring familiar locations to
distant, unknown countries. The demand was so great that many artists specialized in the genre, painting
country scenes, sandy dunes, canals, seascapes (Hobbema, Van Goyen, Van Reuysdael), views of the cities
(Vermeer, Berkcheyde, Van der Heyden) or winter scenes (Avercamp). In France a number of artists, known
as the Barbizon School, began to paint sketches in the open air, so as to capture reality better. The final
painting, though worked over in the studio, had a greater air of spontaneity. This school was to open the
doors to one of the most celebrated movements in painting: Impressionism.

The third genre of painting is portrait. Nowadays famous faces are widely reproduced in the media.
Television, magazines and newspapers spread them quickly throughout the world. In Medieval times,
artists painted very few portraits, because religion was the main interest. Portraiture began to flourish at
the end of the Middle Ages, when the individual began to gain importance. The first portraits, dating from
the 14th century, were still part of religious painting. Over the centuries that followed, every king, prince
and governer was to have himself "portraited". From 1830, the art of portraiture went into a fast decline. A
new technique was available to all levels of society: photography. Who could prefer the days spent for a
portrait to the instant gratification provided by a camera?

Genre painting is a painting that depicts scenes from everyday life. Street scenes, peasants working
in the fields, women at their washing, any subject would do as long as it was taken from life. The term
"genre" did not come into use until the end of the 18th century, though this style of painting dates from the
17th. The man who has come to symbolize this upheaval is an Italian painter, Michelangelo Merisi, called
Caravaggio, after the town in Northern Italy where he was born. Beginning with Caravaggio, painters were
ready to study people's natural, spontaneous behaviour. They began to depict people in a familiar ordinary
world, something that had never previously been done in painting. This new style of painting was
immediately popular, especially since small paintings that were easy to handle, had made their appearance.
They are called "easel paintings". On the eve of the French Revolution, painters began to abandon genre
painting, because they thought and felt the subjects were too light and frivolous. Virtue and noble
sentiments came back into fashion. This frequently resulted in the theatrical compositions that were too
sentimental to be "true". Throughout the first half of the 19th century genre painting was abandoned in
favour of grander subjects, inspired by history or mythology. It wasn't until the arrival of the Impressionists
in the late 19th century that genre painting came back into its own.

Taking everything into consideration, it seems possible to distinguish these 4 so different and so
beautiful at the same time genres of paintings. It is also important to remember that nothing stands forever
because art is changing every year. Who knows, maybe in 100 years future youth will study graffiti as the
main component of street art at the university.