Making works of art which feature figures performing familiar, commonplace motions is a largely modern practice. It is hard to find examples from before the 19th century.
Art works paid for by the state or the church employ mostly Significant Gestures - heroic, dramatic, godly, instructive.
In utilitarian arts such as pottery, a homely movement shows up occasionally. This drawing of two women getting ready to bathe is on the inside of a drinking bowl made about 470 B.C.
A notable exception is a stone carving from a balustrade atop a temple in Athens. The woman pauses to remove her sandal in order to humbly approach a goddess barefooted. It dates from about 406 B.C.
The next example skips ahead in date past the entirety of the Middle Ages to about 1650. It is a detail from a women's bath fantasy by Cerquozzi.
Rembrandt made many studies of ordinary, everyday gestures, though few were developed into finished paintings. This drawing of a little boy being brought into the house, against his will, by a woman is from about 1635.
Degas, however, made a career of the practice. He made fine pictures of people doing such un-heroic things as yawning, scratching, trying on hats, among many others.
New York artist Isabel Bishop made a lifelong occupation of observing and depicting ordinary actions
The first example was done in 1935, the third one in 1965.
Such things can be made into Significant Works of Art.
