some of the mythological, heroic and allegorical devices of history paintings in order to achieve higher
status. The work of Reynolds was central to the popularity of such conflations, aiming to merge an
academic concern with antiquity with the business of capturing a likeness, the pragmatic, commercial core
of the genre. Reynolds’ portraits of military officers referred to the realities of war among other subjects
of contemporary relevance (Hallett, 2014, 165–188). Marcia Pointon (1993, 104) has characterized
eighteenthcentury portraiture as “an ambiguous, controversial and disputatious genre.” It constantly
redefined its nature and status, as its social uses ranged from recording likenesses of high society patrons
to those of infamous villains and “madwomen,” from caricature and parody to propaganda (Pointon,
1993, 84, 96–99). Satirical portraits thrived in line with the Enlightenment’s propensity for social
critique. Portraiture, while not regarded primarily as a field of “genius” or “originality,” due to its
association with close imitation of a specific model, encouraged nevertheless technical innovations such
as the sweeping brushstrokes of Gainsborough or the simplified contours of a neoclassical bust, as well
as “higher” conceptual innovations, such as the very particular classical and modern hybrids made by
Reynolds. Artists such as Hogarth developed established portrait types in new ways (Hallett, 2006d,
160). Given its commercial role and potential for endowing social prestige, however, such innovations
rapidly acquired fashionable status.
It was also in the eighteenth century that portraiture focused so closely on sitters as individual
personalities expressing more openly a range of emotions. So prevalent was the “feeling subject” that the
type also spread to other genres such as animal portraiture. It had been common since antiquity to
anthropomorphize horses and endow them with a human capacity for feeling. These tendencies intensified
in the eighteenth century and are evident in, for example, the equine portrait Whistlejacket (c.1762) by
George Stubbs (Warner, 2004, 9–14).
The main development within genre painting was its high profile, from the middle of the century, in the
role of social and moral reform, the latter being considered traditionally as the role of history painting. In
the case of Greuze, genre painting was perceived to transcend generic hierarchies because of its appeal to
“sentiment.” It therefore constituted a radical challenge to the hierarchy of genres, in much the same way
as had occurred in the theatre, where the naturalistic French drame or English comedy of manners, based
on bourgeois life, came to be seen as more attractive than the more highflown rhetoric of classical
tragedy. Greuze’s compositions were reminiscent of stage tableaux, highly charged emotional scenes
featuring stock figures such as the “Greuze girl,” a type of adolescent girl figure often characterized by
sweet melancholy and sensual awareness (Fort, 2007, 130). They formed a subgenre in their own right.
These paintings relocated rhetorical representations of intense feeling typical of the history genre in
scenes of everyday contemporary life, connecting the private, domestic realm with more public and
communal moral codes (Ledbury, 2007, 186–187, 195). These issues will be discussed further in Chapter
5.
It became more common and desirable in the second half of the century for portraits of individuals to be
incorporated into genre paintings. Hybrid works of this kind resembled conversation pieces, but qualified
as “genre” due to a clear emphasis on everyday activity of some kind, rather than on the identity of the
model or sitter. Greuze, Chardin and Reynolds were among others who composed, respectively, images
such as The WellBeloved Mother (La Mère bien aimée, 1765), The House of Cards (Le Château de
cartes, c.1737) and The Age of Innocence (1788). Such works used studies of real individuals in order to
explore issues such as the moral aspects of leisure pursuits or the vulnerability, innocence and
distractions of childhood (Conisbee, 1981, 138–139; Pointon, 1993, 181). In this way, plausible scenes
featuring private friends and patrons could convey semipublic moral themes. Susan Siegfried (2007, 11,
15–35) has discussed the ways in which portraits within genre paintings, particularly those of female
subjects, brought a suggestion of reality to a fictional (or, often playacting) composition, while allowing