AB-63B-1963-007 — The Garden of Maldoror (1963)

Technical information

Title: The Garden of Maldoror
Date: 1963
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 130 × 162 cm
Location: Unknown

Biographical / historical context

In 1963, Breuillaud develops a darker, more cryptic strand within his organic universe, where the matrix becomes a nocturnal and mental milieu. After the great red, incandescent chambers of segment 63B, certain canvases tighten the light, making it arise from within the forms themselves, and establish an atmosphere of restrained strangeness.

The title—rare within the corpus—evokes an imaginary of black poetry and inner bestiary. It orients the reading toward a scene that is less narrative than psychic, where the beauty of translucencies borders on the unease of obscure mass. In this context, The Garden of Maldoror appears as a pivotal work, condensing the tension between opacity and apparition.

Formal / stylistic description

The canvas is structured by a vast central dark mass with irregular contours, imposing itself as an ovoid matrix, almost mineral, set within a peripheral field of muted green.

Inside this black form, milky areas surface like pockets or reserves: they open into lacunae and translucent membranes, suggesting floating presences—sometimes larval, sometimes vaguely human—suspended in a thick medium.

A filamentary network of red-brown lines crosses the whole like a nervous system: it links nuclei, rims cavities and catches luminous points.

Light therefore seems to emanate from within, through the contrast between blue-black opacity and pallid clearings, giving the composition an internal breathing rhythm.

The dense matter combines velvety zones with more incisive reworkings, reinforcing the impression of a dark ecosystem in which forms take shape and dissolve.

Comparative analysis / related works

Within segment 63B, the work stands out for its introspective character: where The Roots of the Night (AB-63B-1963-006) unfolds a populated scene centred on red incandescence, The Garden of Maldoror concentrates the action in a single black matrix, as if closed upon its own apparitions.

Compared with The Eye of the Centre (AB-63B-1963-005), the organisation is less cosmic and more psychic: the internal network does not build a theatre, it infiltrates the form and renders it unsettling, almost subterranean.

This densification—through deep blacks and inner light—announces later research in which Breuillaud makes matter itself the subject.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1963 dating is supported by the palette dominated by blue-blacks, the presence of a red-brown internal network still close to the 63B structures, and translucent figures typical of the earliest series of floating beings.

The facture—built from thick layers and veins organising the matrix—corresponds to the experiments of that year.

The whole aligns with the working indication of a “black matrix” populated by “translucent beings”, confirming attribution and insertion within the 63B corpus.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Georges Pillement Catalogue, colour plate VII (1967).