If there are kinds in painting : the Portrait, the Landscape, the Still life, the Self-portrait, religious, mythological painting… there exists also a painting of kind which it is advisable to be strictly accurate not to confuse with the kinds.

The painting of kind indicates until the 18th century all that is not religious painting or historical painting, in particular, the daily scenes.

The genre paintings cover subjects of the everyday life like the family life, the pastoral compositions, of street, the meals, the festivals or the scenes of tavern.

Many artists or even in the pictorial movements specialized in the painting of kind.

It is during the 17th century, in particular at the Flemings and the Dutchmen, that the painting of kind takes truly its impulse.

Already at Pieter Bruegel the Old one presents, it opens out at Jan Steen, David Teniers and Adriaen Brouwer. The ordinary life of a country never was as completely represented as that of Holland at this period.

The large Masters, but also the artists more the pain-killers, excel then in this art. 

Among the painters of Dutch kind, called "the minor artists", one must quote Gerard Terborch, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard Dou, Adriaen Van Ostade and Frans Hals.

At Vermeer the painting of kind is characterized by a reduction of the elements narratifs and a very clear description which puts the objects on the same level as the characters.


Painting is the immutable mirror of all that the Universe offers to us of more beautiful. 
Ylipe.