- Paul and Mattheus Brill
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Selfportrait, Paul Bril, 1595-1600.
Paul (1554–1626) and Matthijs (1550–1583) Bril (or Brill) were brothers, both born in Antwerp, who were landscape painters who worked in Rome after earning papal favor.
Contents
Biography
Fantastic mountain landscape, Paul Bril, 1598They are also described as painters of capricci (whims or fancies) or vedute ideate or veduta di fantasia, with typical rustic hills with a few ruins. Matthijs began work on several frescoes in Rome from 1570 onwards, and his work includes the Vatican's Seasons. Matthijs died young, and his brother continued his work around 1574. Paul, a student of Damiaen Oertelmans,[1] painted frescoes such as the landscapes in the Casino Rospigliosi (Rome), and The Roman Forum, which showed this site for what it had become: a slum for squatters and pasture for livestock (so much so that the place was nicknamed Campo Vaccino, or "The Cowfield"). His masterpiece may be a fresco in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican.
Paul also did engravings and small cabinet paintings on copper, some of which are signed with a pair of glasses (a pun on the Flemish word 'bril' which means 'glasses'). Some of these were collaborations with Johann Rottenhammer, who according to a dealer's letter of 1617 painted the figures in Venice and then sent the plates to Rome for Bril to complete the landscape. He collaborated with his friend Adam Elsheimer, who he both influenced and was influenced by, on one painting (now Chatsworth House).[2]
Agostino Tassi may have been Paul's pupil. Tassi later became the master of Claude Lorrain. The Bril Brothers form one of the links between the panoramic views of Joachim Patenier and the ideal landscape evolved by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain.
References
- ^ Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Paulus Bril
- ^ Rüdiger Klessmann, Adam Elsheimer 1578-1610, 2006, Paul Holberton publishing/National Galleries of Scotland; ISBN 1-903278-78-3
Sources
- Peter and Linda Murray, The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists. Fifth Edition: Revised and Enlarged (Penguin Books, London, 1988), 51.
- Carla Hendriks, Northern Landscapes on Roman Walls: The Frescoes of Matthijs and Paul Bril. (Florence : Centro Di della Edifimi, c2003).
- Rudolf Baer, Paul Bril: Studien zur entwicklungsgeschichte der Landschaftsmalerei um 1600. (Munich: J.B. Grassi, 1930).
- Francesca Cappelletti, Paul Bril e la pittura di paesaggio a Roma, 1580-1630. (Rome: Ugo Bozzi, c.2006).
- Louisa Wood Ruby, Paul Bril: The Drawings. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999).
- Anton Mayer, Das Leben und die Werke der Brueder Matthaeus und Paul Brill. (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1910).
External links
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Bril, Paul". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.Categories:- Flemish painters
- Flemish artists (before 1830)
- Landscape artists
- 16th-century Belgian people
- 17th-century Belgian people
- 1550s births
- 1626 deaths
- Flemish Renaissance painters
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