Origins.

Genre painting emerged in the 1820s and 1830s as American artists searched for uniquely American subject matter. Turning from formal portraits and history painting, genre painters such as John Quidor, William Sidney Mount, and George Caleb Bingham painted scenes from everyday life and popular American literature. Genre painting, in its embrace of the everyday, lent symbolic importance to the common experiences of ordinary American citizens. In the late 1820s Quidor began painting subjects from the works of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, producing such works as The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1829) and The Money Diggers (1832). Mount documented rural life on the farms of his native Long Island, New York. In paintings such as Farmers Nooning (1836), Cider Making (1840-1841), and Eel Spearing at Setauket (1845), Mount created an optimistic mood of harmony, serenity, and abundance.

Bingham's Early Career.

George...