| Brea's first known work is completely Provencal in derivation, with its references to Enguerrand Quarton and, in the side figures, Jacques Durandi. In 1483, Brea was active in Genoa and Taggia while continuing to work in the commissions in Nice. In his latter work, the Provencal elements are tempered with a greater naturalism, probably acquired through the known artists with south Dutch and Lombard paintings in Liguria. In 1490 Brea completed the three left, sections of a polyptych initiated by Vincenzo, found some years before the altar of Savona Cathedral. Brea apparently had some difficulty to equate the monumentality of Foppas figures and its vision of the landscape. Foppas influence can be seen again in Breas later works, as a Virgin and Child Throne with Musicmaking Angels. Inspired no doubt by the period after, he began to pay more attention to Lombard art. The signing triptych of the assumption of the Virgin shows affinities not only with south Dutch painting but also with Luca Baudo and those iconographic sources such as the engraving of Twine prospettiva fantastica by Bernardo Prevedari (1481). A more comprehensive and sense of volume in the figures also can be seen in the polyptych of Baptism of Christ (Taggia, Dominican convent) of that same year, although the wood frame is built in an old-fashioned style typical of Liguria and Nice. The same architectural structure was repeated in later policy, especially those of customers in Nice. Two dismembered policies must date from the period after 1495; the S Bartolomeo degli Armeni, Genoa, had a central section representing the crucifixion with the Virgin, SS John and Mary Magdalene, where the rural landscape, prepared between the south Dutch and Lombard influences, anticipates the Liguria paintings of Pier Francesco Sacchi (c. 1485-1528). The other groups are probably San Nicolas de Tolentino and St. Vincent Ferrer and St Peter. The other polyptych date after 1495 describes the assumption of the Virgin, and his side panel, with the presentation of Christ, presents a pleasant perspective bypass Lombard.In 1502-3 Pitch collaborated in Genoa with Lorenzo Fasolo and Giovanni Barbagelata on some fresh and group paintings (without) of the cathedral and S Maria del Carmine. In the following two years was documented in Savona with Framework dOggiono. The first work in which left the polyptych structure in favor of the great only altarpiece was Calvary with the Saints. A similar approach can be seen in the signed and dated Coronation of the Virgin and the Virgen del Rosario. In its last works, beginning with the conversion of San Pablo, Brea returned to the polyptych format. Extensive interventions by assistants are evident in the polyptych of San Devout, and in the St George. |
