Genre painting was when artists chose to to show 'normal life' such as household scenes in domestic places, rather than battles, gods & monsters, saints and angels etc.. Vermeer (17th century)was the most famous of these, although we only know of around 25 paintings that were definitely by him. Pretty impressive to be able to influence the world through just a small number of works!
Later on, 19th century, a different movement (or 'genre') of artists noticed that Vermeer & his 'genre' artists only showed upper class life and decided to push the boundary further, painting farmers, stone pickers and others in what they saw as 'Realism' styles. So in the art world, each time there is a little revolution, it sets the scene for the next revolt...
