AB-CCL-1977-001 — Voluptuous Round (II) (1977)

Technical information

Title : Voluptuous Round (II)
Date : 1977
Technique : Oil on canvas (HST)
Dimensions : 73 × 100 cm
Location : Unknown

Biographical / historical context

In 1977, Breuillaud continues the investigations begun in 1976 into circularity and organic formation. The “round” is no longer merely an arrangement of bodies: it becomes a device of genesis, an inner theatre in which hybrid entities manipulate, recombine, and transform living matter.

Voluptuous Round (II) condenses this tension between the carnal and the cosmic: the sensuality of volumes remains, yet it is caught within a larger process, as if the figure were participating in the making of a world rather than in a human scene.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition, broadly open, organizes several presences around a central locus of action. At left, a large pale head and simplified torso appear as a silent witness. At the centre, a blue-green masked entity, with strongly marked eyes, dominates the whole and directs the gesture.

Around this nucleus, nude bodies twist and unfurl: one, stretched diagonally, rises upward; another folds at right into a loop, forming a fleshly enclosure. Between these forms, a small figure is seized and handled, as if at the heart of an operation of transformation.

The palette is dominated by radiant yellows and ochres, traversed by cooler greens and blues. The paint, at times translucent, is threaded with filaments and fine reworkings that suggest an inner circulation (nerves, currents, pulsations) rather than naturalistic modelling.

Comparative analysis / related works

In relation to AB-CCL-1976-001 (Voluptuous Round I), the 1977 version expands the space and charges the round with an operative dimension: movement is no longer merely rotational, but transformational, oriented by a central figure.

The masked entity and the manipulating gesture echo, within the corpus, the “operator” type works of the early 1970s, while re-situating them within a golden light and a more open flesh.

Transparencies, the circulation of internal lines, and the mixture of the carnal and the spectral link the work to Breuillaud’s CCL explorations of 1977, in which the figure oscillates between organism, mask, and amniotic milieu.

Justification of dating and attribution

The date 1977 is consistent with the radiant yellow-ochre palette and the oil transparency effects characteristic of this late CCL phase. The presence of a structuring central mask-figure also aligns with 1977 compositions in which the “gaze” becomes an energetic centre.

The open round construction, the coexistence of human volumes and metamorphic entities, and the filamentous, vibrating matter accord with Breuillaud’s known corpus of these years. Taken together, these formal criteria support the attribution.

According to the source notice, the work is reproduced and dated in the Michelle Philippon catalogue (1992).

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Reproduced, dated, and titled in the Michelle Philippon catalogue (1992).

Source notice: artist’s studio, Vence (provenance information).

Current location: unknown.