Biography

He was born in the Romanian Zám village in 1846. He was the specific personality of the Barbizon school and the plein-air landscape painting as well. Paál’s name and art only after his death, - by the National Salon retrospective exhibition (1902) – became known before the general public of Hungary.

He started his artistic studies at the drawing school in Arad city, where his fist teacher was the painter Péter Nagy. Later he learnt at the Pál Böhm painting school in Arad, and also here he met with Mihály Munkácsy in 1862. He continued his studies in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he became a pupil of Albert Zimmermann. From 1869 with state scholarship he studied in Munich. In the autumn of 1870 also with scholarship he took study trip to the Netherlands, and later to Belgium and London. In 1872 he settled in Paris, but the he spent the warmer half of the year in Barbizon, in the Fontainebleau forest. 

His tragically short oeuvre (the painter died at 33 years old) only after 1875 really fulfilled, in that time he painted his major works as well. On his plein air painted pictures - to following the principles of the Barbizon school - he portrayed primarily the nature, especially intimate forest details. His strength was the representation of the outdoors observed light and shadow plays, which helps to express the deep emotions on his landscape painting. A significant part of his paintings can be found in the Hungarian National Gallery.