SEVERIN ROESEN, Still Life with Flowers

Severin Roesen is widely regarded as one of the most prolific and talented mid-19^th century American still life painters.  His arrival in the United States from Germany coincided with the growing popularity of the genre, but unlike those of his American predecessors, Roesen’s still lifes were far more ambitious in scale and composition.  Opulent tableaus of flowers and fruit, with their sumptuous compositions, reflected mid-century wealth and optimism and were known to ‘make the room’ in which they were displayed. 

Roesen’s still lifes celebrated the pleasures of the physical world and their subtle juxtapositions of colors and textures evoke the visceral while still embodying Victorian decorum.   These compositions echoed the ideal taste of the period. Noted scholar William Gerdts states “there is an element of horror vaccui in these and other still lifes by Roesen, the crowding of elements in a limited space that also characterized Victorian interior decoration” (William H. Gerdts and Russell Burke, American Still-Life Painting, New York, 1971, p. 61).  Given the grandiose montages, and the often impossible juxtapositions of flowers and fruits of different seasons and climates, it is believed that Roesen may have worked from memory, employing his own lexicon of flowers, fruits and vessels, rather than painting from life.   This is almost certainly true for Still Life with Flowers, a lush composition dating from the late 1850s, a time when Roesen was at his most prolific and presumably most sought after.