1848-1871 Severin Roesen (ca. 1815-1872) is a painter known for his abundant fruit and flower still lifes and is today recognized as one of the major American still-life painters of the mid-nineteenth century. Born in Cologne, in Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1848. While Roesen's paintings reveal a meticulous attention to detail in their precise arrangements and close brushwork, his subject matter, even down to specific motifs, did not change throughout his career. Sometimes he made near copies of paintings, but usually he merely rearranged and reassembled stock elements. Numerous items in Fruit and Wine Glass, for example, also appear in other paintings. The footed desert plate full of strawberries is a common motif. The pilsner glass, sometimes accompanied by an open bottle of champagne, is interchangeable with a wine goblet filled with lemonade used elsewhere. The glass is nearly always placed at the lower left edge of the painting; a halved lemon often appears nearby. Branches full of grapes arranged from lower left to upper right provide the composition with a graceful S-curve and subtly lead the viewer's eye over the entire display. Here the composition is balanced by light and dark grapes at either side and filled in by scattered raspberries, cherries, peaches, apples, pears, and apricots. Many of these compositional elements, if not the items depicted, were derived from seventeenth-century Dutch still life paintings by such artists as Jan van Huysem.  Related Paintings of Severin Roesen :. | Fruit and Wine Glass | Still life with Strawberries | Still Life with a Basket of Fruit | Still life with Strawberries | Still Life with Fruit |
Related Artists:
Raffaello Botticini
1477-1520
Allen Smith
1810-1890 Allen Smith Galleries
Antonio Maria Fabres y Costa
Spanish, 1854 - 1936 Antonio Fabres was a famous Spanish artist during the turn of the century. He was born in Barcelona Spain in 1854. It is said that he was the artist gene since his father was a draughtsman and his uncle a silversmith. He started studying at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in his native city at the age of 13. When he turned 21, he received a grant to study in Rome. There are records of his sculptures from early in his career but later on he became a painter almost exclusively. He joined Mariano Fortuny with a group that became known for their intense realism. Their popularity grew with the taste of the bourgeoisie seeking exotic images with oriental of medieval themes. He went back to Barcelona in 1886 and in 1894 he moved to Paris. The popularity he had earned during his decade in Italy helped him open a large studio where he could create complex scenes for the upper classes. In 1902 the Academia de San Carlos decided to renovate their classical techniques with the ones of realism that were so popular in Europe at the time. Antonio Fabres was called to take the place of Santiago Rebull as head of this important institution. Although some of his students went on to become what was later known as the Post-Revolutionary Movement in Mexican art, the faculty had a hard time adapting to his distinct style and personality. In 1907, he returned to Rome. One of his last commissions in Mexico was the decorations of a hall at the Porfirio Diaz mansion where he mainly focused on art nouveau style . Fabres was recognized most everywhere he traveled. He was acclaimed in Barcelona, London, Paris, Vienna and Lyon. At the end of his life he was dealt a very unfortunate blow when in 1926 he decided to donate a large amount of works to the Museo de Bellas Artes de Barcelona. In exchange for this generous donation he asked the Museum that a hall be built with his name, but the museum never built that hall and although he protested several times, they could never settle the argument. Antonio Fabres died in Rome in 1938.