Bril

Bril, the name of two landscape painters, both natives of Antwerp.—MATTYS BRIL (1550–84) went during his youth to Italy, and, under the patronage of Pope Gregory XIII., painted several frescoes in the Vatican. He was also distinguished as an historical and landscape painter.—His more celebrated younger brother, PAUL BRIL (1556–1626), received instruction under Mattys in Rome, and soon excelled his master. The works of his ripe age exhibit high poetical qualities, and a fine appreciation of the effects of light in the sky, which have been described as but little inferior to those of his great successor, Claude Lorraine. They have a character of solemn rest and calmness, and at times even an elegiac tone of melancholy, which well accords with representations of the glories of fallen Rome.