Tour: Johannes Vermeer and Dutch Scenes of Daily Life in the 1600s

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Overview

Artists now use the term genre, a French word meaning “type” or “kind,” to describe scenes showing people at work, play, or rest. The seventeenth-century Dutch, who did more than any other nation to popularize such images, did not see them as a single category but spoke of “merry companies,” “picnics,” “bordello scenes,” and the like. Regardless of the term, the intention of genre painting is not who people are, as with portraiture, but rather what they are doing.

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Captions

1.
1	Pieter de Hooch, A Dutch Courtyard, 1658/1660
2	Gabriel Metsu, The Intruder, c. 1660
3	Adriaen van Ostade, The Cottage Dooryard, 1673
4	Paulus Potter, A Farrier's Shop, 1648
5	Jan Steen, The Dancing Couple, 1663
6	Gerard ter Borch II, The Suitor's Visit, c. 1658
2.
7	Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664
8	Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, c. 1665