A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value. The best-known hierarchies are supported by the European academies between the seventeenth century and the modern age, and of them the hierarchy that for the pictorial genres held the French Academy that played a central role in academic art.
The debate on the aesthetics of painting, which continued to gain accession since the Renaissance, was based on the importance of allegory: pictorial elements such as line and color were used to convey an ultimate idea or unifying theme. For this reason idealism was adopted in art, so that natural forms would be generalized, and in turn subordinated to the unity of the work of art. The objective was to transmit a universal truth through the imitation of nature.
André Félibien, a theorist of French classicism in a prologue to the Conferences of the Academy codifies classical painting by pictorial themes: “history, portraiture, landscape, seascapes, flowers and fruits” . History painting was considered in large genre and included paintings with religious, mythological, historical, literary or allegorical themes. They embodied some interpretation of life or carried an intellectual or moral message. The gods and goddesses of ancient mythologies represented different aspects of the human psyche, religious figures represented different ideas, and history, like other sources, represented a dialectic or game of ideas. For a long time, especially during the French Revolution, history painting often focused on the representation of a heroic male nude; although this declined in the 19th century.
Based on that hierarchy, the following genres are classified from most to least noble:
History painting, including historically important, religious, mythological, or allegorical subjects
Genre scene (scènes de genre or petit genre): representation of scenes from everyday life.
Portrait painting
Animal painting
Still life
According to the Academy, the portraits, landscapes and still lifes were inferior because they were simple representations of external objects, without moral force or artistic imagination. The painting of genre-neither ideal in style, nor elevated in the subject-was admired for its skill, ingenuity and even its humor, but it was never confused with great art. The hierarchy of genres also had a correspondence with the hierarchy of formats: large format for history painting, small for still lifes.
According to the Academy, the painter should imitate God, whose most perfect work is man, and shows groups of human figures and chose themes of history and fable. “It must,” Félibien writes, “like historians, represent great events, or like poets, subjects who will please; and climbing even higher, be able to hide under the veil of the fable the virtues of great men and the most exalted mysteries.
The term is mostly used within the field of painting, and from the High Renaissance onwards, by which time painting had asserted itself as the highest form of art. This had not been the case in Medieval art and the art-commissioning sectors of society took a considerable period to fully accept this view. The Raphael Cartoons are a clear example of the continuing status of tapestry, the most expensive form of art in the 16th century. In the Early Medieval period 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 objéts d’art 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.
In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johnson in his Life of John Milton: “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, and comic poetry, with a similar ranking for drama. The novel 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, settings of words were accorded a higher status than merely instrumental works, at least until the Baroque period, and opera retained a superior status for much longer. The status of works also varies with the number of players and singers involved, with those 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 increasing its popularity.
Interpretation:
According to the academic concept, the “genre” paintings stood at the lowest level, because they were merely narrative, imprinting art, without any attempt at morality and edification. This genre painting, albeit perfect in style and design, boasted only for skill, ingenuity and even humor, but was never considered high art.
Modern life – modern events, manners, clothes, appearance – were considered incompatible with high style, and only an idealized past could serve as a suitable, noble and relevant topic. (Accordingly, the ordinary body, too, did not serve as an object of depiction-only beautiful, ideal bodies were painted in an antique way).
Theorists of academic art believed that this hierarchy was justified, since it reflected the inherent possibility of moral impact for each of the genres. So, for example, an artist will deliver a much more effective morality through a historical canvas, then a portrait or genre painting, than through a landscape or still-life. In addition, masters of antiquity and the Renaissance believed that the highest form of art is the image of a human figure. Thus, a landscape or still life, where a person was not portrayed, is indeed a more “low” form of the genre. Finally, the system of the academic hierarchy reflects the potential value of each of the canvases: a large historical painting is the most suitable and convenient genre for a state order, then a portrait, a household genre and a landscape – and still lifes are usually shallow and are performed for personal interiors.
Reasons:
Andrei Aleksandrovich Karev writes: “Awareness of the genre variety of painting as a property of the culture of the New Time in the conditions of the Enlightenment was, to a certain extent, analogous to gravitation to encyclopedic knowledge, and hence to the same multidimensional cognition of the world. The growth of specialization without the loss of universalism in general is a precious feature of this time, which made it possible to simultaneously see the small and large, the particular and the universal, and finally the human and the divine. The unique viewpoint on this or that object did not at all contradict the general image of the universe, although it did not directly appeal to it, as it was in the Baroque era. Interest in the multiplicity of the multiplicity of being is replaced by attention to its separate facets, which have an independent beauty and, accordingly, value. [Russian] Academy of Arts could not help but react to this process and, without waiting for the emergence of appropriate requests in the environment of customers, opened one by one classes, in which they taught the features of work in a particular genre ”
Impact:
This hierarchical system, based on the traditions of Greek and Roman art, summed up during the Italian Renaissance, was used by the academies as a basis for awarding prizes and scholarships, as well as a system of hanging out at public exhibitions (Salons). It also had a significant impact on the estimated value of works of art.
The French academy had Grand and Petits Prix contests respectively in two directions. Thus, the highest prizes were given a priori to works in the historical genre – a practice that caused a lot of discontent among students. This inflexible hierarchy caused a lot of discontent among famous artists, which eventually led to the undermining of the authority of the academies. In addition, for the sake of prestige, some painters made attempts to write grandiose historical paintings, which turned out not at all. If the artist had a portraitist rather than a historical painter, the failure could have caused him a trauma.
Portrait:
Curiously, the oppressed place of the portrait in this hierarchy. In the review of the Salon of 1791 it was possible to read: “The historical painter, who must imitate nature in all its aspects, must be able to write portraits. However, a portrait can not be considered an independent genre. ”
Kathrmer de Kensi, one of the most influential theoreticians of classicism, considered the portrait genre so low that he did not even pay special attention to it: “There is nothing more limited than the pleasure that you get from contemplating a portrait. If you throw aside the interest that gives the portrait personal or public affection and talent of the artist, then it is obvious that the mind and imagination are almost not involved in this kind of imitation. ” The pleasure obtained from the portrait can not be compared with aesthetic pleasure, the achievement of which is the goal of fine arts. The portrait shows what really exists, while “great art, with the help of what is, must portray that which does not really exist, should show the ideal.”
Critics, however, admitted the inevitability of the existence of a historical portrait, which, in their deep conviction, can only be created by a historical painter. “It is they, the historical painters, who can write a real portrait.” About historical portraits are often written in the reviews of exhibitions, sometimes they are considered immediately after the historical picture. About portraits of individuals (which every year became more and more) prefer not to mention or simply list them by their names, without commenting at all. Understanding the portrait as a kind of supplement to the historical picture was very common. This was written not only by the well-known adherents of the classicism of Kathrmer de Kensi, Delescluze, but also by critics of the next generation, whose aesthetic views were more flexible
Renaissance art:
The hierarchy grew out of the struggle to gain acceptance of painting as one of the Liberal arts, and then controversies to establish an equal or superior status within them with architecture and sculpture. These matters were considered of great importance by artist-theorists such as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari. 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, who was strongly influenced by neoplatonism. By the time of Mannerist theorists such as Gian Paolo Lomazzo and Federico Zuccari (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 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 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 and Flemish Baroque painting. However no theorists emerged to champion the new genres, and the relatively small amount of Dutch theoretical writing, by Karel van Mander, 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, Karel Dujardin and Vermeer 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’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 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 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.
The British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds 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, that he threw even the dung about the ground with an air of dignity, may be applied to Titian; 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 invented a genre that was called fêtes galantes, where he would show scenes of courtly amusements taking place in Arcadian setting; 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 Prix de Rome 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 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 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, 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 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 unattatched from historical significance; the Realists often choosing genre painting and still life, while the Impressionists would most often focus on landscapes.
At the moment descendants value canvasses of low genre, in particular, portraits and scenes from life, while academic historical painting in most cases seems boring and uninviting. Emerged new artistic trends – realism, and later impressionism, were interested in depicting everyday life and the current moment.