Flemish school of the 16th century, Brill workshop - Animated landscape of a resting man

Re-canvas of 64 cm by 47 cm
Frame of 76 cm by 60 cm

The least known is the father, Mattheus Brill the Elder. Of his two sons, Mattheus II Brill and Paul Brill, it is Paul Brill, the younger, who left the most important mark in the history of Art. We know almost nothing about the father, originally from Bréda he worked in Antwerp. As for Mattheus II Brill, he was born in 1550 in Antwerp and died in Rome in 1584. He left Flanders for Rome very quickly and acquired a certain notoriety there. He was charged with decorating two rooms in the Vatican. In the ducal room, his premature death interrupts the work. His brother Paul Brill takes over. Paul Brill born in 1554 in Antwerp, he died in Rome in 1626. Very quickly, his notoriety exceeded that of his older brother. He became friends with the Carracci and Annibal who participated in his creations, notably by painting the characters in his compositions. He worked for all the popes who succeeded one another during his stay and his style became a school. Paul Brill is one of those, and perhaps we can say the one, who took the landscape out of the minor genre to make it a completely special genre in its own right. He offers more realistic landscapes than his predecessors and a less artificial light, he somehow put a little Italian softness in the Flemish painting of the moment. His work opens the door to Claude Lorrain who will push the work even further on the rendering of different atmospheres and to Nicolas Poussin who will be inspired by the construction of his works with his successive plans to mark the depth along an axis obliquely which is also the case for our table. Our painting presents the characteristics of an early work by Paul Brill and/or his workshop.