2009
Chriscinda Claire Henry
- University of Chicago
![Picture of Chriscinda Claire Henry](https://www.acls.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/B9FCA486-3151-DE11-97CE-000C293A51F7.jpg)
Abstract
This project explores connections between genre painting and popular culture in Renaissance Italy, focusing in particular on the marginal figures of peasants, foreigners, street performers, and prostitutes. As a “low” mode of vernacular expression with subjects drawn from everyday life and popular culture, genre painting functioned as a mode of social commentary and counter-figuration to Renaissance idealism. I interpret its themes in light of contemporary social and cultural practices, locating painting within a broader current of vernacular realism well-documented in music, theater, and literary history. While scholars have studied low genres of poetry, song, and performance, this project is the first to offer an in-depth examination of an analogous non-canonical genre of painting.