Question 1

What were the most popular genres of painting?

Accepted Answer

When academic art flourished, particularly in the 19th Century, there were 5 common genres or subjects for painting, listed in order of importance:

• History Painting (Paintings that narrated a historical, allegorical, or religious message. This genre had the highest prestige in the European art academies, usually contained a lot of active figures, and were generally grandiose in scale and emotion.)

• Portrait Painting (Generally a head and shoulders portrait painting of the sitter, but could also be a full length portrait, a self-portrait, or even a group portrait.)

• Genre Painting (These were paintings of everyday life depicting ordinary people doing their thing.)

• Landscape Painting (Paintings depicting views of the scenery as the main subject matter, and not simply as a backdrop.)

• Still Life Painting (Paintings of inanimate objects, either man-made or natural, set up into an interesting arrangement.)

Question 2

How do you find inspiration for painting from your own life?

Accepted Answer

This is such an important step in any artist's path. And generally the most important factor in 'finding your voice' as an artist.

Your personal life may seem completely ordinary or even boring to you. But, remember, to anyone else, it is a source of great inspiration or intrigue. As humans, we are always curious to know how other people live.

We feel a certain pull towards the personal stories of others. Being human is about communicating and sharing experiences. It's in our DNA. We're social. 

So seeing the world through another's eyes is immensely fascinating to us. We identify with the narrator, the viewer, or the protagonist in the story, and briefly step out of our own lives into theirs.

This is why books, movies, music, paintings, and art in general, is still so popular since the days when the first humans recorded their experiences on cave walls. 

Besides finding inspiration from your own life, actually painting from life is really important, since we can so easily become overly reliant on photographic references.

I believe that artists who can draw or paint from life (or from their imagination) have a far greater advantage than those who just rely on painting from photos.

Damian Osborne

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