Del género literario al género pictórico: la teoría de los géneros en la pintura francesa de Félibien a Diderot

Abstract

Throughout the cinquecento we observed a transfer from the notion of literary genre to pictorial theory, simultaneously with the rereading of Aristotle’s Poetics. He used classifications and rhetorical genres to reflect on artistic specificity, making easy its production and subsequent reception, being the basis on which the theory of pictorial genres in France will be sustained, from Félibien to Diderot. However, part of the current artistic historiography has applied a model of analysis born in Nineteenth?Century literary theory to study the phenomenon of the Eighteenth?Century genre, concluding with certain questionable theories, when analyzing Eighteenth?Century painting. Our aim will be therefore, to delve into this birth of the notion of poetic genre and to show how it was transferred to painting, conditioning the classifications and genres, and establishing hierarchies between them.