Joseph Rebell Biography

Joseph Rebell was born in Vienna where he also studied at the Art Academy. In 1810 he travelled to Italy, at first taking up residence in Milan, and later moving to Naples where he was employed at the Court of Viceroy Joachim Murat. After Murat?s death the artist went to Rome in 1815 where he remained until 1824 when he was appointed Director of the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna - an office that he held until his early death in 1828. Rebell's landscape works show the strong influence of English and French landscape painters - artists who Rebell met while in Italy - and their penchant for realism. Although his landscapes have a rather understated emotionality they nevertheless demonstrate a certain atmospheric quality that places Rebell in the company of the early landscape realists. In Rebell's work, idealistic composition and heroic staffage groupings are replaced by scenes filled with serenity and sensitive light plays.