1: Everyday Egyptian
Unknown artist
The Three Musicians, c. 1422-1411 BCEWall mural, this segment approx. w38 cm x h41 cm (14.96" x 16.14")
Tomb of Nakht, Thebes, Egypt
Briefly looking at the history of genre painting today, but I have to cheat a bit to do it, because so far as I'm aware the above piece shouldn't qualify. Why: the piece is not actually meant to be about these figures, or about their common activity.
This is an ancient funerary wall painting in the tomb of an Egyptian scribe (non-royal1 but still well-respected) named Nakht. It shows three female musicians performing, as part of a larger scene portraying a banquet. While this scene may not have been strictly an 'everyday' occurrence, it would still have been fairly common, and shows lower-status figures performing a routine function.
The trouble with looking at Egyptian art (insofar as we should call it 'art'2) is that its context is removed from us by millennia, and it's...rather complicated shit once you start poking at it. I don't pretend to even begin to understand all the nuance, but broadly speaking, images in tombs were meant to act as a bridge from the earthly world to the afterlife. In the same way that tombs were stocked with objects and food to serve the deceased on their way to/once in the realm of the dead, wall paintings could show what the deceased hoped to see waiting for them on the other side (in a sort of continuation of their normal life, just *better*). So one speculation: this is the sort of scene Nakht wanted to encounter in his afterlife, servants there to provide entertainment for him during an eternal feast.
For our purposes today, the main thing to note is just how long humans have been keeping image representations of their daily lives. The part that changes over time is what aspects of daily life are the focus. For the Egyptians, it was primarily positive parts perceived to reflect the glory and power of royals and nobles, tied to cultural hopes around eternal life. As we look at more modern genre depictions, consider what various societies/artists choose to represent, and what that says (positive and negative) about their worldviews.
For a quick overview of Nakht's tomb: EgyptSites or TourEgypt
For a much more in-depth exploration of the full tomb and its context: OsirisNet
NOTES:
1. It appears that non-royal tombs are actually often the better bet for finding depictions of daily life in Egyptian art. Royal tombs involved a lot of ritual pomp and ceremony that necessarily had to be there, while the tombs of lower nobles had far more room for variation.
2. I'm not getting into "what is art". But there is a definite distinction between 'art' meant simply to be looked at and reflected upon, and 'art' expected to serve a ritual/magical/miraculous function in addition to whatever other purposes. They're fundamentally not the same thing.
This is an ancient funerary wall painting in the tomb of an Egyptian scribe (non-royal1 but still well-respected) named Nakht. It shows three female musicians performing, as part of a larger scene portraying a banquet. While this scene may not have been strictly an 'everyday' occurrence, it would still have been fairly common, and shows lower-status figures performing a routine function.
The trouble with looking at Egyptian art (insofar as we should call it 'art'2) is that its context is removed from us by millennia, and it's...rather complicated shit once you start poking at it. I don't pretend to even begin to understand all the nuance, but broadly speaking, images in tombs were meant to act as a bridge from the earthly world to the afterlife. In the same way that tombs were stocked with objects and food to serve the deceased on their way to/once in the realm of the dead, wall paintings could show what the deceased hoped to see waiting for them on the other side (in a sort of continuation of their normal life, just *better*). So one speculation: this is the sort of scene Nakht wanted to encounter in his afterlife, servants there to provide entertainment for him during an eternal feast.
For our purposes today, the main thing to note is just how long humans have been keeping image representations of their daily lives. The part that changes over time is what aspects of daily life are the focus. For the Egyptians, it was primarily positive parts perceived to reflect the glory and power of royals and nobles, tied to cultural hopes around eternal life. As we look at more modern genre depictions, consider what various societies/artists choose to represent, and what that says (positive and negative) about their worldviews.
For a quick overview of Nakht's tomb: EgyptSites or TourEgypt
For a much more in-depth exploration of the full tomb and its context: OsirisNet
NOTES:
1. It appears that non-royal tombs are actually often the better bet for finding depictions of daily life in Egyptian art. Royal tombs involved a lot of ritual pomp and ceremony that necessarily had to be there, while the tombs of lower nobles had far more room for variation.
2. I'm not getting into "what is art". But there is a definite distinction between 'art' meant simply to be looked at and reflected upon, and 'art' expected to serve a ritual/magical/miraculous function in addition to whatever other purposes. They're fundamentally not the same thing.