II.

Early Genre Painting

Genre painting originated in ancient times. Many of the scenes painted on the walls of Egyptian tombs represent the daily life of the people of ancient Egypt. Excavations in the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum have revealed many genre paintings, both conventional and erotic. In the late Middle Ages genre painting reappeared, represented chiefly in the religious calendars that formed part of the illuminations, or illustrations, of manuscript books; the calendars show people going about the occupations appropriate to each season of the year (see Illuminated Manuscripts).

In Italy during the early Renaissance, many of the religious and historical pictures of such painters as the 15th-century Florentines Ghirlandaio and Benozzo Gozzoli and the later Venetians Giorgione and the Bassano family are considered genre paintings because of their contemporaneous backgrounds and costumes as well as their use of people of the times as models.

In the 15th century the Flemish painter Petrus Christus represented scenes from ordinary life in some of his religious paintings, and in the following two centuries genre painting matured, reaching its apotheosis with the work of the Flemish artists Pieter Bruegel the Elder, David Teniers, and Adriaen Brouwer.