rity 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»)>.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,width=210,height=230»)> in a frontier barnyard, completion of the daily chores, or an assembly in a public square <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/g4.htm»,«g4»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=245»)>. Even thedeath of a loved one <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/g5.htm»,«g5»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=250»)> 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,width=210,height=255»)> 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,width=210,height=255«)>, and other pastimes are among the most renowned in American art. Thomas Eakins » depictions of rowing <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/g8.htm»,«g8»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=240»)> 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,width=210,height=250«)> on the French Riviera. Similarly, James McNeill Whistler »s gathering at a dockside table <javascript:OpenBrWindow(«images/g10.htm»,«g10»,«resizable=yes,width=210,height=240»)> in London, and John Singer Sargent «sglimpse of a Venetian street <javascript:OpenBrWindow(»images/g11.htm«,»g11«,»resizable=yes,width=210,height=255«)>, are transitions from the portraiture for which they were be...
