Paul Bril
(1554 - 1626) |
|
Still-lifes with musical instruments, Landscapes, Muralist Art Work
| Name: |
Paul Bril |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Antwerp |
| Nationality: |
|
| Birth: |
1554 |
| Death: |
1626 |
| Website: |
|
| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
|
|
Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Still-lifes with musical instruments, Landscapes, Muralist |
| Medium: |
|
| Method: |
|
| Style: |
|
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
|
|
|
Biography
| An important early Flemish interpreter of landscape, Paul Bril was the son of a still-life painter, Mattheus Bril the Elder, and brother of Mattheus Bril the Younger, also a painter. Van Mandcr reports that Paul began his training with D. Oortclmans in Antwerp and that his early production involved paintings on musical instruments. In 1574 Bril left Antwerp and is mentioned in Lyon. In 1582 Paul is recorded as being in Rome, having followed his brother there. Paul joined the Accademia di San Luca in 1582 and assisted his brother on his commissions for the Vatican. Mattheus died in 1583. Paul remained in Rome, where he worked in the Vatican and the Lateran Chapel for Sixtus V between 1585 and 1590. In 1592 Paul married. He continued to be active in Roman churches. Around 1600 Paul executed some landscapes for S. Cecilia, some landscape frescoes for the sacristy vault of S. Maria Maggiore, and a fresco of the Shipwreck of St. Clement for the Sala Ducale of the Vatican. Brit's landscapes also found their way into the decorations of the Palazzo Rospigliosi and the Villa Ludovisi. Bril collaborated extensively with Baglione, if the latter's account is to be believed. Their efforts included Scenes from the Life of Constantine for S. Giovanni in Laterano. Bril's popularity as a landscape muralist waned somewhat after about 1605, and thereafter he concentrated on smaller easel pictures and cabinet-sized works. Bril's early landscape retains the additive, piecemeal approach characteristic of Northern interpreters of landscape in the sixteenth century. Strong contrasts of dark and light zigzag through his pictures and pictuesque elements are scattered throughout – the rather epic quality of vast scale and distances is inherited from Pieter Brueghel the Eider, handled with Bril's energetic brushwork. By the turn of the century, Bril responded to the more unified landscapes of Annibale Carracci and Adam Elsheimer, and he then produced a calmer, more bucolic, and integrated interpretation of nature. Bril, in turn, with his clarity of form, his interest in delineating all details of nature, and his handling of strongly contrasted lights and shadows, was an important influence on later Flemish landscape painters and was also considered an important influence on the development of Claude Lorrain. |
Samples of Work
|
|
