The Portrait and Landscape Genres

Abstract

While contemporary paintings come in every conceivable form, pre-modern paintings were understood in terms of only five categories or ‘genres’, with some genres being more important than others. These genres, in descending order of importance, were: history painting (which were large multifigure compositions addressing significant topics), portrait, genre, landscape and still life. This book examines two of those genres: the landscape and the portrait. Paintings in general are supremely organised things, the function of this organisation being to create a memorable visual impact. For landscapes, this impact is achieved largely through accentuating the illusion of depth that they convey. For portraits, the face and the figure are of prime importance. This chapter introduces the histories of these genres and examines them for their functional differences.