Glossary: Genre Painting

The term relates to the 5 types of painting that were accepted by the French Royal Academy. In order of importance these were History, Portrait, Genre, Landscape and Still life.The term Genre deals with paintings of everyday life from the human perspective often on a small scale. William Hogarth's Rake's progress, an 18th century morality play in paintings, is a biting satire on the social conditions of his times. In the 20th C. L.S.Lowery did much the same but with gentleness and wit.