Mountainous Seashore

The location of the landscape depicted remains as vague as the title of the painting. Perhaps the fortification in the centre with its round tower, a frequently recurring motif in the works of Bril and other artists, may have been inspired by the Scipione tomb on the Via Appia. As a whole, the painting is fantasy landscape, an “imagined place”, in which natural elements are artistically combined to create an elaborate scene. The delicate interplay of water, air and light and the hints of human maritime activity in the landscape help to give this artificial, imagined setting a lively touch of reality.
The composition consists of lateral vertical lines and a soothing horizontal line in the background. Within this structure, there are diagonals between the foreground and the distance. These are determined not only by the careful arrangement of the varied earth formations along the coast of the bay, but are also carried by the light. The rays of the morning enter the scene from the left, but without showing the actual source, in a wash of pink and yellow shades which shine on the water over to the
right foreground. The light illuminates the facing surfaces of the cliffs, the castle rock and the tower at the centre of the picture. White patches of foam and calm lighter areas of water stand out against the predominantly blue and green shades of the water. Gleaming white reflexes shine on the fishermen in the boat returning home from their night-time catch and the men heaving a full net onto the beach.
The direction of their movement follows that of the light and is repeated up in the air by the two big, dark birds. In contrast, deep shadows create diagonal gashes in the picture. At the left edge, a dark rock occupies the entire height of the painting as a sharp silhouette and a large fishing boat with a steep mast and delicate rigging has cast anchor at its foot. In this shadowy area, a group of fishermen has lit a fire. Untouched by the natural light, they are vibrantly illuminated by this artificial light source. The light in the sky follows the same direction as on the surface of the water, and the sky and water merge hazily in the far distance. The blue mountain ridges are only just hinted at as a delicate silhouette in the far distance. Bril’s brushstrokes softly and generously outline the predominantly rounded shapes.
Around 1600, the Flemish landscape painters started departing from the impression of the “world landscape” that dominated in the Netherlands, and increasingly started adopting Italian styles and approaches to art. Paul Bril, who alongside Jan Brueghel, Josse de Momper and Roelant Savery was one of the most important representatives of the landscape genre of the period, also travelled through France to Rome in 1574, where he was greatly impressed by the art of Adam Elsheimer and the landscapes of Annibale Carracci. His brother Matthijs had already settled in Rome and was an acclaimed landscape painter. By the time the latter died in 1584, Paul Bril had become the most successful and the busiest Dutch landscape painter in Rome. This painting is considered one of Bril’s most accomplished panels. As a mature and very late work, it uses finely balanced colours and a delicate lighting composition to convey a gentle mood. Irene Geismeier | 200 Masterpieces of European Painting - Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2019