Matthijs Bril or Matthijs Bril the Younger (1550 – 8 June 1583) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman of landscapes. He spent most of his active career in Rome where his drawings of ancient Roman sites played an important role in the development of topographical landscape art.Nicola Courtright. "Matthijs Bril." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 September 2016 He was also a painter of capricci (architectural fantasies), with typical rustic hills with a few ruins.Matthijs Bril
on Hadrianus He died young and his younger brother

Paul Bril Paul Bril (1554 – 7 October 1626) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish painter and printmaker principally known for his Landscape art, landscapes.Nicola Courtright. "Paul Bril." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. ...

, who had joined him in Rome, finished his commissions.''Jan en Kasper van Balen'' in: Frans Jozef van den Branden, ', Antwerp: J.-E. Buschmann, 1883, p. 184–190

Life

Matthijs was born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, the son of the painter Matthijs Bril the Elder.Biographical details
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

Matthijs and his younger brother

likely started their artistic training with their father in Antwerp. Matthijs moved to Rome probably around 1575. In Rome he worked on several

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

es in the

Vatican Palace The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the build ...

including the ''Views of Rome with the Translation of the Remains of St. Gregory Nazianzus'', executed soon after the actual transfer of the saint's remains in June 1580. Matthijs was joined by his younger brother Paul probably around or after 1582. Mathijs Bril's second project in Rome was in the

Tower of the Winds The Tower of the Winds, known as the in Greek, and by #Names, other names, is an octagonal Pentelic marble tower in the Roman Agora in Athens, named after the eight large reliefs of wind gods around its top. Its date is uncertain, but was compl ...

. This building in the Vatican Palace was built between 1578 and 1580 after a design by the Bolognese architect Ottaviano Mascherino as an astronomical observatory to study the

Gregorian Calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...

Reform implemented by pope

Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake ...

.The Tower of Winds
at Archivum Secretum Vaticanum With the assistance of his brother Paul, Matthijs Bril decorated four rooms with biblical cycles in landscape friezes and two rooms with topographical views of Rome and imaginary vedute within an illusionistic framework. He also painted landscapes in two rooms of the Palazzo Orsini in

Monterotondo Monterotondo is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome, central Italy. History According to some historians, Monterotondo is the heir of the ancient Sabine town of Eretum, although the modern settlement appeared in the 10th-11th c ...

(north of Rome), which he signed with small glasses (a pun on his surname as the Flemish word 'bril' means 'glasses'). When Matthijs died in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

in 1583, his brother continued his work, picking up many of Matthijs' commissions.

Work

Matthijs Bril's work is now mainly known through his frescoes and drawings. Matthijs was specialized in landscapes. He painted two types of landscapes: landscapes with a topographical interest and imaginary landscapes. Mathijs Bril - Moonlight landscape

Matthijs contributed to the genre of topographical painting in combining close attention to detail with a perspective that highlights the monumentality of the depicted buildings. The latter was achieved by using a lowered viewpoint and dynamic recession into the distance of the depicted object. His imaginary landscapes without a topographical interest are more typically

Mannerist Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...

in their close observation of nature and dramatic contrasts of light and dark. Their palette is dominated by acid blues and greens and the brushwork is impressionistic. These imaginary landscapes were used by his brother Paul and others as an inspiration for their work. These paintings are now known through a series of prints made by the Dutch engraver Simon Frisius. They were published in 1611 and 1613–14 in two volumes under the title ''Topographia Variarum Regionum.'' Matthijs was a prolific draughtsman and his drawings are a principal source of information on his work. Many of his drawings were kept by his brother Paul and copied by contemporaries, such as

Jan Brueghel the Elder Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painting, Flemish painter and Draughtsmanship, draughtsman. He was the younger son of the eminent Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Flemish ...

. Matthijs is known to have collaborated with the Italian painters

Antonio Tempesta Antonio Tempesta, also called il Tempestino (1555 – 5 August 1630), was an Italian painter and engraver, whose art acted as a point of connection between Roman Baroque, Baroque Rome and the culture of Antwerp. Much of his work depicts major ba ...

, Niccolo Circignani and Matteo da Siena on various projects.

References

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). *Anton Mayer, ''Das Leben und die Werke der Brueder Matthaeus und Paul Brill.'' (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1910).

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bril, Mathijs 16th-century Flemish painters Italian vedutisti Flemish landscape painters Artists from the Spanish Netherlands Fresco painters 1550s births 1583 deaths Flemish Renaissance painters Painters from Antwerp Flemish draughtsmen