Amongst the great diversity of art which the Victorian age produced, nothing equals in interest its scenes of contemporary life; and yet the importance of genre is still not fully appreciated. Admittedly, it was for the most part designed to appeal to the popular market – to that middle-class taste which was so potent a force in the development of Victorian art and literature. For this reason it has come to embody everything that we now regard as quintessentially 'Victorian', a fact which explains both its current neglect and its importance.

Genre painters may have lacked the serious intentions of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Social Realists, but their work is of equal cultural interest; not least because, in response to the demands of their patrons, genre painters constructed a veritable portrait of the age.

The very appeal to middle-brow taste gives genre a special value, a claim eminently borne out by such striking images as Sophie Anderson's No Walk Today or Tissot's The Bridesmaid.

Nothing encapsulates the sentiments, ideals and obsessions of the Victorians so powerfully as paintings like these. The aim of this book is to give them the attention they so richly deserve. Was £11.99 Now £8.99

About the Author:
Dr. Mary Cowling is Curator of the Royal Holloway Collection, University of London, and fort he past ten years, has taught M.A. courses in Victorian Art and Design at the Victorian Centre, Royal Holloway. She previously taught at the Roehampton Institute and at the University of Cambridge University. Her first major work, The Artist as Anthropologist, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1989.