As sweet as watermelons

Dated 1869 and titled 'As sweet as watermelons', this canvas was painted during Buchser's American period (1866–71), when he was travelling through the American South documenting post-Civil War society. The watermelon motif carries a specific cultural history in American racial imagery of this period — Buchser, as a European observer in the Reconstruction-era South, would have encountered African American communities with whom watermelons were associated in both genuine cultural practice and emerging racist stereotype. Buchser's American paintings documented African American life with unusual directness for a European artist, and his subjects — freedmen, their families, their daily activities — were rendered with observational respect rather than caricature. The title's phrase 'as sweet as watermelons' suggests a positive, possibly celebratory quality, consistent with Buchser's generally sympathetic engagement with his American subjects. These works represent the most historically significant portion of his catalogue and have attracted renewed scholarly attention in the twenty-first century.

American subjects tested Buchser's technical range: new light conditions (intense Southern sun rather than European overcast), unfamiliar physiognomies, and culturally specific settings required him to observe and adapt rather than apply formulas. His handling of African American subjects shows direct observation — skin tones built from warm earth tones rather than the modified European flesh palette conventional in academic figure painting.