The main genres of painting and their representatives

Portraiture

 

Portraiture was the most popular type of painting in America from colonial times well into the nineteenth century. Most early portraitists had no formal training, but were self-taught sign- or housepainters. Typically, they traveled from town to town, supplementing their income with the commissions of local landowners and merchants. Now identified as "limners <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p1.htm','p1','resizable=yes,their work provides a glimpse of early colonial life. The rising mercantile class commissioned portraits as status symbols. Sitters posed in well-appointed interiors or landscapes in their finest clothes in order to document their property <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p2.htm','p2','resizable=yes,good taste, and sophistication.portraits of the next generation of American artists were similar in purpose, but technically more accomplished. Study abroad was often part of these artists' training. Gilbert Stuart <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p3.htm','p3','resizable=yes,width=200,height=308')> and John Singleton Copley were among those who traveled to Europe to study the work of the great masters and take instruction with eminent academicians. Stuart excelled at capturing the personality and psychological presence of his sitters. The theatrical British Grand Manner <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p4.htm','p4','resizable=yes,style was adopted by Copley and then popularized in America through work of Stuart and John Trumbull.the beginning of the Federal era, a market emerged for images of the young nation's leaders. Gilbert Stuart painted more than one hundred portraits ofGeorge Washington <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p5.htm','p5','resizable=yes,American heroes were rarely portrayed with the pomp that surrounded European aristocracy. In keeping with the colonial values of self-determination, portraits instead referred to individual accomplishments or suggested the sitter's symbolic importance to the nation. Rembrandt Peale'sportrait of his brother <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p6.htm','p6','resizable=yes,documents Rubens' success with what was reputed to be the first geranium grown in America. The flowers were prized in Europe but difficult to cultivate in the United States. In this light, the work becomes not only an image of the artist's brother, but a portrait of American self-sufficiency and achievement.served a documentary purpose for early Americans that is fulfilled by the camera today. Miniatures <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p7.htm','p7','resizable=yes,usually only a few inches high, were often the only visual record of loved ones separated by great distances. It was also common for people to commission a posthumous portrait, or mourning picture <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p8.htm','p8','resizable=yes,of a deceased child or other family member. Photography became more accessible during the mid-nineteenth century, leading to a decrease in the demand for painted portraits. Nevertheless, affluent sitters still took pleasure in proclaiming their material comforts with oil and canvas. Thomas Sully's idealized, elegant images of Philadelphia society <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p9.htm','p9','resizable=yes,exemplify the romantic style that was popular well into the 1860s. Although now better known for his genre scenes, Eastman Johnson accepted several portrait commissions, including The Brown Family <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p10.htm','p10','resizable=yes,closing decades of the nineteenth century the art centers of Europe continued to attract American artists and wealthy patrons. Some American artists preferred to live abroad, where they had greater access to the great public art collections and to recent developments in contemporary art. Mary Cassatt <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p11.htm','p11','resizable=yes,width=230,height=295')> spent much of her long career in France, combining her interest in portraiture with the new style of impressionism. John Singer Sargent <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p12.htm','p12','resizable=yes,width=230,height=295')> became a very successful portraitist, both in Europe and America. His knack for capturing the quality of fleeting moments in time adds a layer of depth to what might otherwise be simply society portraits.the turn of the nineteenth century, realism was the dominant portrait style. Thomas Eakins was adept at conveying personality, portraying his subjects with unvarnished realism and penetrating psychological insight. In the 1876 portrait of his niece <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p13.htm','p13','resizable=yes,Ella, Eakins lends an air of serious deliberation to a subject that is often overly sentimentalized. Best known for her portraits of children, Lydia Field Emmet <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p14.htm','p14','resizable=yes,incorporated characteristics of modernist techniques into her fundamentally traditional style. The resulting works are realistic portrayals that convey a sense of immediacy and the liveliness of her young subjects.the rise of abstraction in the twentieth century, experimentation with line, shape, and color changed artistic presentations of sitters. Arshile Gorky's The Artist and His Mother <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p15.htm','p15','resizable=yes,width=210,height=320')> shows the influence of abstract modernist trends from Europe, including cubism and expressionism. Walt Kuhn's Wisconsin <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p16.htm','p16','resizable=yes,width=230,height=295')>, painted during the Depression, is a portrait of an era more than an individual. In order to increase the expressive impact of the work, Kuhn created a representative portrait that could be any one of a number of people at a particular place in time. Similarly, artists in the 1960s employed images of widely recognizable figures from popular culture as compositional and expressive devices, producing icons of mass culture in the guise of portraits. Andy Warhol's images of celebrities <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p17.htm','p17','resizable=yes,are the quintessential example of this approach.in the postmodern age continues to take on new form and purpose. Chuck Close's hugely magnified images experiment with both the meaning and the process of the portrait. From a distance, Fanny <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p18.htm','p18','resizable=yes,appears to be a photograph, but in fact this highly detailed image is composed entirely of the artist's fingerprints. Barkley Leonnard Hendricks, best known for his highly realistic portraits of African Americans, uses painting to address issues ofculture and identity <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/p19.htm','p19','resizable=yes,A segment of the population traditionally underrepresented in fine art, these life-sized figures achieve iconic status through their neutral environments and their direct, serious gaze. Here, portraiture no longer solely fulfills a documentary function, but explores complex social and cultural issues [ 3 ].

Landscape painting

, or views of nature, play a significant role in American art. The earliest American landscape paintings were topographic illustrations of farms, cities, and landmarks <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l1.htm','l1','resizable=yes,that were generally painted for local residents or for Europeans interested in the New World. In the colonial era, landscape views were found primarily in the backgrounds of portraits <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l2.htm','l2','resizable=yes,usually to provide additional information about the sitter.

Landscape painting came to dominate American art in the 1820s, when artists began to equate the country's unspoiled wilderness <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l3.htm','l3','resizable=yes,with the new nation's seemingly limitless potential. Foremost among those increasingly interested in the expressive power of landscape was the young artist Thomas Cole. Cole is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River school, a loosely knit group of American artists who actively painted landscapes between 1825 and 1875. Giving stylistic direction to a distinctly American understanding of nature, Hudson River school artists invested the land with a sense of national identity, the promise of prosperity, and the presence of God.first generation of Hudson River school artists, represented by Asher B. Durand <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l4.htm','l4','resizable=yes,width=230,height=300')> and Cole, believed that studying the land led to enlightenment and a connection with divine harmony. Every detail absorbed their attention, from moss-covered rocks in clear streams to snowcapped mountains. For other artists, exact documentation was less important than illustrating religious and moral sentiments. Allegorical landscapes <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l5.htm','l5','resizable=yes,are imaginary scenes with symbolic meaning, rather than representations of a particular place. Sometimes inspired by literature, these large-scale works illustrated high-minded themes that were usually reserved for history painting.industrial development pushed westward, landscape artists were documenting the American wilderness just as it was disappearing. Although George Inness' The Lackawanna Valley <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l6.htm','l6','resizable=yes,width=230,height=235')> was commissioned by a railroad company, the finished work is not a direct homage to industrialization. At his patron's request, the artist exaggerated features of the railroad, but also prominently displayed the field of tree stumps in the foreground. Ambiguous in tone, the landscape can be read as a glorification of development or as a reminder of the price of progress [ 3 ].the mid-nineteenth century, the American public became increasingly interested in the far reaches of the continent. Adventurous artists made names for themselves by bringing images of the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, andSouth America <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l7.htm','l7','resizable=yes,back to East Coast audiences. George Catlin <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l8.htm','l8','resizable=yes,width=230,height=265')> built his career on his record of the indigenous people of the Americas. Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran became known for their grandiose landscapes <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l9.htm','l9','resizable=yes,their huge panoramas were meant to approximate the live viewing experience. Moran's paintings of the American West were instrumental in the establishment of Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872., these grand, monumental landscapes gave way to more intimate, interpretive views. For the new generation, landscape was less a stage for theatrical effects but rather a sounding board for the artist's personal emotional response. At the turn of the century, Winslow Homer <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l10.htm','l10','resizable=yes, specialized in outdoor scenes that captured American rural life. American impressionists <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l11.htm','l11','resizable=yes,experimented with rendering the evocative effects of light and atmosphere in landscape. The new aesthetic was characterized by loose brushwork, subtle tonalities, and an interest in conveying mood.after the turn of the century, a group of New York artists rejected picturesque pastoral subjects and focused instead on gritty urban scenes. Although there are some technical similarities to the work of impressionists, theurban landscapes <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l12.htm','l12','resizable=yes,of the Ashcan school were intended to document the grim realities of city life and spark social change. The work of Edward Hopper also has an element of social commentary. A realist artist, he painted both urban andrural subjects <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l13.htm','l13','resizable=yes,but throughout there is a dimension of the isolation of American society between the World Wars. The regionalist painters <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l14.htm','l14','resizable=yes,a group of artists working primarily in the Midwest during the 1930s, had a different tone but similar goals. They were interested in uniquely American activities and places, which for them meant glorifying the labor and lifestyle of rural regions.artists of the twentieth century approached landscape with a variety of strategies. The Armory Show of 1913 brought the work of European modernists to the attention of American artists, many for the first time. Succeeding developments fostered a uniquely American abstraction, based on precedents of cubism and expressionism. John Marin's Storm over Taos <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l15.htm','l15','resizable=yes,width=215,height=225')> contains elements of both these movements, synthesized into a dynamic landscape. Lyonel Feininger's Storm Brewing <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l16.htm','l16','resizable=yes,width=230,height=225')> has a different conception of a similar subject. Georgia O'Keeffe <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l17.htm','l17','resizable=yes,width=230,height=255')>'s unique form of organic abstraction involved distilling the natural world to its fundamental elements, creating works of dramatic simplicity. Joan Mitchell used the gestural painting techniques <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/l18.htm','l18','resizable=yes,of abstract expressionism to convey her conception of the world around her. Sometimes recognizable places, sometimes only colors and textures reminiscent of landscape motifs, these works show that even in modern, industrialized society, the American landscape still has the power to elicit artistic expression [ 7 ].

Still Life

The depiction of inanimate objects is called "still life <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s1.htm','s1','resizable=yes,Common subjects include flowers and fruit, tableware, books and newspapers, and musical instruments. The function of a still life may be straightforward representation, or the artist may intend to convey a more subtle, moral message. Traditionally, still lifes and still-life elements of larger compositions have complex iconographical significance. For example, the presence of books, maps, or writing materials in portraiture refers to the sitter's knowledge and education. Cut flowers, a snuffed-out candle, or signs of decay in fruit and other food represent the transience of life and are meant to remind viewers of their own mortality.life painting flourished in Europe particularly in Holland in the seventeenth century, and examples were brought to America by the Dutch. Early still-life painters <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s2.htm','s2','resizable=yes,in America were mainly self-taught; their work is among the best examples of early American folk art. Shop signs <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s3.htm','s3','resizable=yes,from this period often incorporated elements of still life-an effective method of advertising to those customers who could not read [ 9, p. 135-138 ].first truly accomplished American masters were members of the Peale family of Philadelphia. The Peales excelled in painting pristine tabletop groupings of glassware and fruit, as in James Peale's Fruit Still Life with Chinese Export Basket <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s4.htm','s4','resizable=yes,width=205,height=303')>. Early nineteenth-century painters like the Peales practiced still life as a science. They possessed a deep curiosity for the natural world and felt that these detailed renderings were an extension of scientific inquiry. The works of Martin Johnson Heade are also composed in this spirit. Although created with the objective eye of a naturalist, Heade's studies of flowers <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s5.htm','s5','resizable=yes,and birds are invested with poetic atmosphere; they are some of the most striking still-life works in American art.the late nineteenth century, William Harnett, John Frederick Peto <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s6.htm','s6','resizable=yes,width=190,height=300')>, and others used this emphasis on close observation for a different purpose. They deftly simulated shadows and reflections, colors and textures in illusionistic still lifes designed to fool the eye of the viewer. Their skill made them the leading practitioners of trompe l'oeil painting. With meticulous clarity, they depicted old books, paper money, photographs, and envelopes as if they were extending from the canvas, as in John Haberle's Imitation <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s7.htm','s7','resizable=yes,width=210,height=240')>. the same time other artists adopted a different approach, showing more interest in painterly technique and the tactile qualities of objects. The still lifes of William Merritt Chase and Emil Carlsen <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s8.htm','s8','resizable=yes,width=210,height=245')> display the influence of European art centers including Munich, Dьsseldorf, and Paris. The vigorous brushwork and impressionistic style that characterize these works has little in common with the illusionism of Harnett, but it also found favor with the American public.the twentieth century, still-life painting continued to be transformed by successive modernist styles. The still-life works of Charles Demuth <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s9.htm','s9','resizable=yes,width=220,height=230')> combine the fragmented space of cubism with nuanced attention to organic forms. Charles Sheeler's precisionist still life <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s10.htm','s10','resizable=yes,has the clean lines and quiet solidity more often seen in his landscapes of industrial America. The constrast between accurate representation and modernist style was best explored by Georgia O'Keeffe <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s11.htm','s11','resizable=yes,width=190,height=308')>, who uses both realism and abstractions of the natural world.the mid- and late twentieth century, meaning and subject matter in still-life painting was again transformed and expanded. Pop artists substituted soup and beer cans <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s12.htm','s12','resizable=yes,for the more traditional fruit, flowers, or books. Wayne Thiebaud expressed the optimism of America in the 1950s and 1960s with his seemingly endless arrays of cakes <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s13.htm','s13','resizable=yes,and pies. These objects no longer carry subtle moral messages but have become icons of a consumer-driven culture. Richard Diebenkorn's Still Life <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s14.htm','s14','resizable=yes,width=210,height=300')> becomes a self-portrait-a study of the artist through his tools, personal items, and working environment. Throughout his career Jim Dine incorporated common objects into his work that were meaningful in his own life--such as tools, bathrobes, and hearts. Through repetition over time these objects take on meaning for the viewer as well as the artist. Dine's The Gate, Goodbye Vermont <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/s15.htm','s15','resizable=yes,width=200,height=305')> combines elements of still life and sculptural asssemblage to evoke a particular sense of place and point in time [ 3 ].

 

History painting

painting records noteworthy events and documents scenes of exemplary conduct, virtue, and patriotism. From the eighteenth well into the nineteenth century it was considered the most elevated form of art. In Europe, historical subjects were usually commissioned by royalty, clergy, and governments in order to commemorate and dramatize scenes of national triumph. These works were traditionally executed on a large scale and were intended for official display.first great American painter of historical narratives was Benjamin West. In colonial America there was little demand for large-scale work of this sort, and West traveled to Europe in search of training and patronage. As an expatriate living in London, West achieved great success with works like The Battle of La Hogue <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h1.htm','h1','resizable=yes,width=230,height=240')>, which represents an English victory at sea in 1692.

John Singleton Copley, another American, also found an audience in London. Copley's Watson and the Shark <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h2.htm','h2','resizable=yes,width=210,height=240')> was a private commission illustrating a scene from the life of Brook Watson. Orphaned as a child, Watson later became a wealthy businessman and eventually the mayor of London. By executing this scene with the epic scale and drama traditionally reserved for public works, Copley transforms an episode of personal history into an allegory of salvation with instructive value for public life. Copley's preliminary sketch for the Death of the Earl of Chatham <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h3.htm','h3','resizable=yes,width=210,height=260')> shows a more traditional subject for history painting. The finished product was roughly ten feet wide-a huge monument to an esteemed public figure.America, demand for paintings that celebrated national triumphs did not emerge until after the American Revolution, and then on a less monumental scale. This was due in part to the lack of large public spaces suitable for such grand works and to a reluctance of a young government short on funds to spend money on public decoration. The narrative cycle completed by John Trumbull for the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol is the notable exception., there was a great demand for smaller-scale works of historical subjects. Paul Revere dramatized the Boston Massacre <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h4.htm','h4','resizable=yes,in order to rally colonists to the Revolutionary cause. Scenes of American military conflict <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h5.htm','h5','resizable=yes,were very popular among naive or self-taught artists from the earliest days of the Revolution through the mid-nineteenth century <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h6.htm','h6','resizable=yes,4 ].Civil War provided contemporary sources for artists interested in historical subjects. Winslow Homer, as an artist correspondent for Harper's Weekly during the war, illustrated vignettes of military life <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h7.htm','h7','resizable=yes, J. G. Tanner's Engagement between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac" <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h8.htm','h8','resizable=yes,width=210,height=270')> depicts the famous stalemate between the two armored vessels, the first of their kind, that ushered in a new era in naval warfare. Sometimes these events were depicted as allegories to suggest their timeless meaning. A. A. Lamb represented the Emancipation Proclamation <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h9.htm','h9','resizable=yes,as Liberty in a chariot, triumphantly leading Lincoln and the Union troops before the Capitol.of grand-scale public painting did not revive until the late nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth with the construction of large public buildings. During the Depression in the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration funded the Federal Arts Project in order to increase public support for the arts and employ visual artists. Part of this effort involved the creation of murals <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h10.htm','h10','resizable=yes,for post offices, city halls, and other government buildings. As government commissions for public spaces, these works are the modern heirs to the tradition of history painting.the late twentieth century artists did not completely abandon historical events. Some are composite interpretations that refer to events, such as Robert Rauschenberg's For Dante's 700 Birthday, No. 1 <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/h11.htm','h11','resizable=yes,width=210,height=210')>. However, photography, film, and video have largely transformed history painting into history documentation [ 5, p. 75-77 ].

Marine painting

early as colonial times, Atlantic ports such as Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Charleston were established hubs of American commerce. It was common for wealthy ship owners, mariners, and merchants to commission pictures of the boats and activities by which they made their living. Following British and Dutch models, many artists specialized in marine paintings.first American marine paintings centered on the ports themselves, which were often viewed across the water <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m1.htm','m1','as if from the deck of a ship. These harbor scenes frequently included ship traffic and illustrated mercantile activities along the wharves, suggesting the prosperity of America's flourishing maritime industry. In ship paintings, a harbor view might indicate the vessel's home port, as in Thomas Chambers' New York Harbor with Pilot Boat "George Washington" <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m2.htm','m2','width=210,height=270')>. the nineteenth century, proud ship owners commissioned individual portraits of their commercial vessels <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m3.htm','m3','and racing yachts. Marine painters became skilled not only at precisely delineating the rigging of sailing ships but also at capturing effects of water and sky. The standard format showed the boat broadside <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m4.htm','m4','under full sail or steam, generally with other craft in the distance and perhaps a glimpse of the far shore.the mid-nineteenth century, marine painting shifted emphasis from man to nature. No longer interested in illustrations of commerce, artists like John Frederick Kensett and Fitz Henry Lane strove to capture the spiritual qualities of sea and sky <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m5.htm','m5','These scenes may include ships and human figures, but the true subject is the mood <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m6.htm','m6','evoked by the crystalline atmosphere and pervading sense of serenity. Now called luminist works, these paintings indicate a change in the prevailing attitude toward the natural world.

Martin Johnson Heade <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m7.htm','m7','width=210,height=200')> and Thomas Moran were interested in more naturalistic representations. The unearthly calm of luminist works was replaced by realistic seascapes in which the viewer can almost hear the crashing surf <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m8.htm','m8',' Winslow Homer added figures to this natural realism and reintroduced the human element to marine painting. His works focus on man's relationship with nature, and he uses the sea to embody nature's power. It is a constant and varied element, depicted both as provider of subsistence <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m9.htm','m9','and a life-threatening force <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m10.htm','m10','favored another aspect of marine painting-that of leisure. Their interest in the sea had more to do with light and color than using a body of water as a dramatic device. Their stylistic methods provided artists with new ways to present intimate aspects of the sea, such as the picturesque coves and seasides dotted with revelers represented by Maurice Prendergast <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m11.htm','m11','width=210,height=240')>.

Twentieth-century artists experimented with a variety of styles and techniques in their interpretations of the sea. Modernist John Marin <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m12.htm','m12','width=210,height=260')> captured the ocean's energy with exuberant brushwork and abstract geometric shapes. Mark Rothko <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m13.htm','m13','width=210,height=318')>used surrealist-inspired biomorphic forms to suggest sea creatures in a primordial marine world. Albert Christ-Janer's <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m14.htm','m14','width=210,height=240')> lithograph combines the brilliant color of sun, sea, and sky with the rhythmic patterns of foaming waves. VijaCelmins approaches total abstraction <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/m15.htm','m15','in her quiet, meditative ocean views [3].

Scenes from Everyday Life

The term "genre" refers to depictions of scenes from daily life <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g1.htm','g1','resizable=yes,Genre painting developed in seventeenth-century Europe, specifically in the Netherlands, when newly gained prosperity generated a large middle class and led to broad-based patronage of art. Genre emerged in America about two centuries later, when the ambitions and optimism of the young country gave rise to a public eager for pictures of people at work and play <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g2.htm','g2','resizable=yes,width=210,height=280')>.

The earliest genre paintings were scenes of rural and frontier life. These works showed Americans engaged in everyday activities such as farming, sewing, hunting, skating, relaxing, and socializing. Virtually any occasion or setting served as subject matter: a festive flaxscutching bee <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g3.htm','g3','resizable=yes,in a frontier barnyard, completion of the daily chores, or an assembly in a public square <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g4.htm','g4','resizable=yes,Even thedeath of a loved one <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g5.htm','g5','resizable=yes,was a typical subject for genre. In each case, the artist conveys a sense of the familiar through action, atmosphere, and detailed setting.at its best provides a convincing view of daily life while also communicating aspects of universal experience that transcend the specific incident portrayed. After the Civil War, one of the leading practitioners of genre was Eastman Johnson, whose paintings of childhood <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g6.htm','g6','resizable=yes,and domestic life won him great popularity. In the mid-nineteenth century, Winslow Homer's images of sailing, hunting <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g7.htm','g7','resizable=yes,and other pastimes are among the most renowned in American art. Thomas Eakins' depictions of rowing <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g8.htm','g8','resizable=yes,and leisure represent a high point of naturalism and precise observation. These works resonate far beyond descriptive storytelling.the late nineteenth century, impressionists developed new techniques of rendering light and color using scenes of leisure and entertainment. American expatriates adopted the subjects popularized by the impressionists, as in Mary Cassatt's boating party <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g9.htm','g9','resizable=yes,on the French Riviera. Similarly, James McNeill Whistler's gathering at a dockside table <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g10.htm','g10','resizable=yes,in London, and John Singer Sargent's glimpse of a Venetian street <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g11.htm','g11','resizable=yes,are transitions from the portraiture for which they were better known. After working in Europe, American impressionists William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, and Edmund C. Tarbell also experimented with the art of genre. These works often focused on life in the country and refined domestic pursuits, as evident in Chase's sparkling depiction of a social visit, A Friendly Call <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g12.htm','g12','resizable=yes,width=210,height=220')>. the early twentieth century, interpretation of modern urban life became an important element of American genre. A level of social commentary was added by members of the Ashcan school with the weary laborers <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g13.htm','g13','resizable=yes,depicted by George Luks and the bloodied boxers <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g14.htm','g14','resizable=yes,of George Bellows. Between the World Wars, artists such as Guy Pиne du Bois <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g15.htm','g15','resizable=yes,width=210,height=295')> and Edward Hopper depicted urban scenes, often with a sense of isolation and melancholy appropriate to the Great Depression.World War II, the rise of abstract art overshadowed traditional representation. But in the late twentieth century figurative painting returned, and imagery from popular and consumer culture were incorporated into a contemporary version of genre. Works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g16.htm','g16','resizable=yes, and Red Grooms <javascript:OpenBrWindow('images/g17.htm','g17','resizable=yes,width=210,height=260')> invest a traditional style with a new dimension of playfulness and social irony [ 4 ].