Term in art history and criticism for paintings depicting scenes
from daily life. It may be applied to appropriate art of any place
or period, but most commonly suggests the type of domestic
subject-matter favored by Dutch 17th-century artists.
In a broader sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch
or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are
genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres
or literature.
genre
