Editing Genre (section)

==Visual arts==
[[File:Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. 014.jpg|thumb|A [[genre painting]], ''[[The Peasant Dance]]'', {{circa|1568}}, by [[Pieter Brueghel the Elder]]]]

The term ''genre'' is much used in the history and criticism of visual art, but in [[art history]] has meanings that overlap rather confusingly. [[Genre painting]] is a term for paintings where the main subject features human figures to whom no specific identity attaches{{spaced ndash}}in other words, figures are not portraits, characters from a story, or allegorical personifications. They usually deal with subjects drawn from "everyday life". These are distinguished from [[staffage]]: incidental figures in what is primarily a [[landscape art|landscape]] or architectural painting. "Genre" is also be used to refer to specialized types of art such as [[still-life]], landscapes, [[marine painting]]s and animal paintings, or groups of artworks with other particular features in terms of subject-matter, style or [[iconography]].

The concept of the "[[hierarchy of genres]]" was a powerful one in artistic theory, especially between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the {{Lang|fr|[[Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture]]|italic=no}} which held a central role in [[academic art]]. The genres, which were mainly applied to painting, in hierarchical order are:

* [[History painting]], including narrative, religious, mythological and allegorical subjects
* [[Portrait painting]]
* [[Genre painting]] or scenes of everyday life
* [[Landscape painting]] (landscapists were the "common [[infantry|footmen]] in the Army of Art" according to the Dutch theorist [[Samuel van Hoogstraten]]) and cityscape
* [[Animal painter|Animal painting]]
* [[Still life]]

The hierarchy was based on a distinction between art that made an intellectual effort to "render visible the universal essence of things" (''imitare'' in Italian) and that which merely consisted of "mechanical copying of particular appearances" (''ritrarre'').<ref>Laura L.,''The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain'', p. 36, Penn State Press, 2008, {{ISBN|0-271-03304-5}}, {{ISBN|978-0-271-03304-4}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=6TSDvkud168C&dq=Hierarchy+of+genres+painting&pg=PA36 Google books]</ref>  [[Idealism]] was privileged over [[Philosophical realism|realism]] in line with [[Renaissance Neo-Platonist]] philosophy.