BRIL, Paul
(b. 1554, Antwerpen, d. 1626, Roma)

Landscape with Roman Ruins

c. 1580
Fresco
Torre dei Venti, Vatican City, Rome

If northern artists specialised in landscape painting, they did not usually come to Rome experienced in fresco painting. Thus some of the most influential landscape frescoes of the sixteenth century were produced not by Flemish, but by Italian artists, such as Polidoro da Caravaggio and Girolamo Muziano. But from the 1570s onwards Matthijs Bril and shortly afterwards his brother Paul established almost a monopoly on this kind of decoration, becoming immensely successful.

This fresco in the Torre dei Venti was executed in collaboration by the Bril brothers.




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