The second in a four-part series of exhibitions mounted through a partnership between the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Musée du Louvre, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the High Museum of Art, Genre Painting and Everyday Life used a focused selection of paintings from the collections of the participating institutions to explore the interrelated themes of genre painting. A category of paintings that featured trademark or character “types” involved in everyday activities, genre paintings elaborated racial, regional, or class differences between depicted figures or between the subjects of the paintings and their intended viewers. These paintings also articulated a sense of their time period through more subtle cues, addressing music, sight, smell, and even taste in enticing visual narratives. Finally, many of the paintings featured were also circulated widely as engravings and chromolithographs, expanding their reach, widening their context, and representing changing modes of communication in nineteenth century America.
The exhibition was accompanied by a publication that features an overview essay as well as interpretive text and comparative images for each exhibition object.
