[Michael Fournier]

Well My opinion is that if you can paint you can paint anything.
Now that said I also feel that you excel where your interest are.
If you are drawn to painting landscapes you will do enough of them to get good at it.
If you love to paint portraits then you will learn what it takes to paint a good one.
If you like still lifes then you will do enough to do that well.

I like to paint figures and portraits because that is where my interests are I find the human form infinitely fascinating but I do landscapes that include figures and I do still lifes as additions to a figure painting after all how often do you sit in a empty room with nothing around you?

So why paint people in a empty void paint them in real settings which will include a still life since most of us have things lying around on tables and put flowers in vases or have have lamps around. And unless you live far out in the middle of nowhere then you will see people in your landscape as you sit there painting so why not include them in the painting.

After all if life was like many landscapes (void of humans) it would look like a ghost town.
Not to say that all landscapes must have a figure in them but I personally find it that it makes a painting much more interesting and more like life if it does.

The real question is why worry about it??
Paint what make your work a great painting not a great portrait or a great landscape or a great still life.

Andrew Wyeth's work is a prime example of paintings that exceed the bounds of their subjects. He paints still lifes that are much more then a still life and he paints landscapes that are more then image of a place but are in fact at a moment of time in a persons life with in that place. And he has done this with and without the figures. In fact Andrew Wyeth's work is some of the greatest paintings done in the 20th century. Would they have been if he limited it to a figure painting or a still life or a landscape? I don't think so. He set out to paint a great painting and painting what he wanted without considering what it would be classified as.