Washerwoman below stairs, a kitchen maid, haggling in the market, selling fish door-to-door, pouring milk, farming families, and drinking.
genre
The arrival and writing of letters, a milkmaid at work, a mother removing nits from her daughter’s hair, spinning, drinking lemonade, and learning to play the lute.
Examples of interiors by Gerard ter Borch, who liked open-ended narrative, Gabriël Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Vermeer.
First popular in the Dutch Golden Age, paintings of interiors enjoyed success during the 19th century, when they were favourites of the avant garde.
It was the patrons who funded, enabled, and occasionally directed the movement towards realism and secular subjects, and developed the genres.
A bloke leans over the back of a seat in a railway carriage, trying to chat up a young woman who is just returning from a funeral. Is this an early Prussian problem picture?
His later portraits and domestic genre paintings grew lighter, and gave insight into home life at the time. His portrayal of fabrics is outstanding.
He innovated with full-length portraits, then from those developed domestic genre scenes which influenced Vermeer. He was born 400 years ago this month.
In the absence of any clearly articulated theoretical statements from the core French Impressionists, there are no obvious rules or clear criteria handed down.
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