Gemma

Artists now use the term genre, a French word meaning “type” or “kind,” to describe scenes showing people at work, play, or rest. The seventeenth-century Dutch, who did more than any other nation to popularize such images, did not see them as a single category but spoke of “merry companies,” “picnics,” “bordello scenes,” and the like. Regardless of the term, the intention of genre painting is not who people are, as with portraiture, but rather what they are doing.

Genre paintings were very popular in the United Netherlands during the 1600s, in part because they allowed the newly founded Dutch republic to celebrate its emerging national identity by depicting many aspects of its society. Quiet, middle-class households were the specialty of Vermeer and De Hooch, while Ter Borch and Metsu focused on wealthy patricians. Rowdy, rustic humor marks the work of Steen, Potter, and the Van Ostade brothers, all of whom depicted peasants.

Whether comical or dignified, Dutch genre pictures often probed social values. Sometimes the activities and objects illustrated folk sayings or served as moral emblems and religious symbols.

from NGA: http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg51/gg51-over2.html#jump