Robert Vickrey was a proponent of the magical realist aesthetic in American art. He worked in the Renaissance tradition of egg tempera but abstracted and reinvented his surroundings to create complex, surreal scenes. The Flowers is an example of Vickrey’s early work, which transformed ordinary suburban street scenes into moments of almost mystical clarity and an uncanny sense of the protagonist’s awareness. The influences of film noir and Expressionism are evident in Vickrey’s work—particularly in its provocative angles—and motivated him to create distinctly surrealist and American portraits.