REALIST GENRE

Whilst reading up about the Dutch realist genre painters, I hadn’t realised that these paintings were simply scenes of people’s lives and scenes of an everyday nature. When realising what the subject was I realised that some everyday scenes paintings have been my favourite and so was intrigued to find a few artists who concentrated in this subject. The first that I found was the Dutch painter Gabriel Metsu. His ‘Man Writing a Letter’ and ‘The Hunter’s Present’ are quite silent and still paintings as the subjects seem content and steady in their occupation, be it talking or writing. Metsu captures the natural light flooding through the window extremely well and creates a basic interior to give the attention to the people who he is painting. In ‘Man Writing a Letter’ Metsu captures a moment of productivity or perhaps pleasure in writing to a beloved or friend, and creates a sense of a beautiful calm day, where the male figure is at ease and leisure in passing the time at his desk. In ‘The Hunter’s Present’, Metsu seems to capture the courtship of a young couple or perhaps even a married couple where the man is presenting the lady he is in love with, with a token of his affection and care, and as all genre paintings tend to have, there is a trusty hound, stood by his master’s side to create a sense of nobility and wealth to afford to keep a pet. I would not say that it is family scene but I will say it is an interpretation of a potential family. Certainly for myself, the use of shadow is the best aspect, as it creates a frame around the focal point which are the people.

A genre painting of a more modern style is Robert Braithwaite Martineau’s ‘The Last Day in the Old Home’ which depicts a Victorian family enjoying their last day in their house. A busier composition than Metsu’s paintings, Martineau captures the luxury and wealth of a Victorian family clearly rich enough to take a larger house. Like Metsu’s work, Martineau has natural light as his source, and captures the highlights and shadows on the figures extremely well, creating a sense of a promising day. Martineau uses a richer palette full of bruised and deep shades, and also features the outside of the house, giving the impression that the family owned an estate. With his palette and choice of interior, Martineau invites the viewer into a world of the care free pleasure of an upper class family.

A contemporary genre painting that I found quite interesting is David Hockney’s ‘My Parent’s’ which by the title tells us it depicts a scene from his parent’s lives. With this genre painting, I found it quite comical as it reminded me of an old couple with no communication, and for the lady, no stimulation. Hockney depicts the reality of old age how maybe there is practically near to nothing to do other than read the newspaper and wait for visitors to break up your day. However, seeing as that seems quite a sad situation, Hockney creates a sense of content with the brightly coloured wall paper and an impression of good weather and optimistic times ahead. A final point is that with the use of very little shadows Hockney is able to create quite a cheerful scene with a disappointing scene but also manages to hide the uneventful goings on, with just a slight glimpse of a smile and happiness from his mother.