Severin roesen biography of rory

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However, still-life painting was traditionally and consistently considered a minor theme in art, superseded in importance by every other subject matter, including genre, portraiture, landscape, and what was known as “history painting,” which was made up of literary or mythological subjects.
(3) Maurice A. Mook, “Severin Roesen: Also the Huntingdon Painter,” Lycoming College Magazine 26 (June, 1973): 28.

A large number of paintings attributed to Severin Roesen survive, however the majority of them are neither dated, nor signed. (15) While resident in Williamsport, it appears that he created larger numbers of fruit compositions, and he added landscape imagery to the backgrounds of some of the larger canvases.

It is believed that he probably trained in Germany as a decorative painter of porcelain, a practice that involved similar conventions as those used by Dutch still-life painters. 50. 1815–1872) was a German-American still-life painter whose meticulously rendered compositions of fruit, flowers, and objects became emblematic of mid-19th-century American material abundance.

See Matthew Baigell, A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1984) p.
(6) Gerdts, p. His hyper-real still lifes graced many dining rooms in the homes of collectors who recognized his exceptional skill.

Roesen often utilized the tendrils of grape foliage to form his ornate signature.

Amy Pastan Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (New York and Washington, D.C.: Watson-Guptill Publications, in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000)

This hierarchy of subject matter predominated in Western painting for at least two hundred years, well into the latter part of the nineteenth century. The richness and opulent abundance of Dutch-inspired floral and fruit still-life compositions embodied the sense that America was a nation blessed by God, and deserving of its material affluence.

Roesen was German and likely from Cologne. 1852) and Abundance (c.

Early in his career in New York Roesen was fortunate to find distribution of his work through the patronage of the American Art Union: “During his New York residence Roesen sold eleven paintings (six floral compositions, three fruit compositions and two combinations of the two) to the American Art Union.

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The first reference to the artist and to his work is believed to occur in 1847, with the notice of a still-life painting (characterized as enamel on porcelain) exhibited in Cologne, Germany.(2) It is also noted that art lexicons in Germany at that time referred to the artist believed to be Roesen (or Rösen) as a “Blumenmaler,” or flower painter.(3) In 1848, he immigrated to the United States along with a large number of other German nationals during a time of war and civil unrest that accompanied the revolutionary movements of that time.

Art historians now recognize Roesen as a pivotal figure in the transition from European-influenced still life to a uniquely American variant, one that emphasized abundance and technical bravura over moralizing content.

The critical reassessment of Roesen's legacy has also highlighted the tensions inherent in his work: the contrast between his European training and his American context, the balance between decoration and meaning, and the interplay of realism and artifice.

(11) The article and other sources suggest that Roesen bartered his paintings in exchange for board, and for bar bills. For an annual fee, subscribers to the American Art Union in New York received an engraving, the publication of the union, and a chance to win works of art in an annual lottery.
(13) Roesen also had apprentices or students during his career as a painter.