Paul Bril
Paul Bril (1554 – 1626) was a Flemish painter and printmaker best known for landscapes. He spent most of his working life in Rome, and his Italianate landscapes helped shape landscape painting in Italy and Northern Europe.
Bril was probably born in Antwerp (though Breda is also suggested) and was the son of the painter Matthijs Bril the Elder. He and his older brother Matthijs likely began their training with their father. Paul may have studied with the Antwerp painter Damiaen Wortelmans, who specialized in decorating harpsichords. Matthijs moved to Rome around 1575 to work on frescoes in the Vatican, and Paul joined him in Rome around 1582. When Matthijs died in 1583, Paul took over many of his commissions. His earliest known works come from the late 1580s, and he built his reputation with projects for Pope Gregory XIII in the Collegio Romano. His standing grew under Pope Sixtus V, who became his principal patron.
Paul Bril worked as part of a team that specialized in landscape painting and contributed decorative landscapes to major Roman buildings, such as the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the Vatican Palace, and the Scala Santa. A notable early commission was the fresco cycle in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (around 1599). Pope Clement VIII then commissioned a monumental seascape, The Martyrdom of St. Clement, painted in the Vatican Palace’s Sala Clementina (about 1600–02) with the Alberti brothers. In 1601 he received a major commission to paint landscapes illustrating the Mattei family properties. He also created landscape frescoes in the Casino dell’Aurora in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi.
His patrons included Rome’s leading families—Colonna, Borghese, Mattei, Barberini—and cardinals such as Federico Borromeo in Milan and Carlo de’ Medici in Florence, as well as Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga in Mantua. In 1621 Bril became director of the Accademia di San Luca, the artists’ academy in Rome, becoming the first foreigner to hold the post. He taught many students, including his son Cyriacus Bril, Luigi Carboni, Balthasar Lauwers, Willem van Nieulandt II, Pieter Spierinckx, Agostino Tassi, and Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom.
Bril’s early landscapes followed the late Mannerist style, with dramatic light contrasts and dynamic forms, inspired by the Flemish tradition of Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Around 1605 his style grew calmer and more classical, likely influenced by Annibale Carracci and Adam Elsheimer. These later works often feature lower horizons and bucolic or mythological subjects and helped shape the classical landscape tradition later associated with Claude Lorrain. Bril is seen as a link between the grand panoramic views of Patinir and the ideal landscapes of Poussin and Lorrain. He influenced Dutch Italianates like Cornelius van Poelenburgh and Bartholomeus Breenbergh and contributed to the Roman studio culture of the Bamboccianti.
In addition to large works, Bril painted small cabinet pictures on copper or panel from the 1590s onward, sometimes signing them with a tiny pair of glasses—a nod to the Flemish word bril, meaning glasses. He was a prolific draftsman, and his drawings were popular with collectors and copied by many students who worked in his studio. He often collaborated with other artists, including Johann Rottenhammer (who painted figures in Venice for Bril to complete landscapes in Rome) and with Jan Brueghel the Elder and Adam Elsheimer. He also helped introduce Brueghel to Cardinal Borromeo, who became Brueghel’s major patron, and hosted Breenbergh in his Rome residence for many years.
Paul Bril died in Rome in 1626.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:20 (CET).