AB-CCL-1979-001 — Dissolution of Bodies (II) (1979)

Technical information

Title : Dissolution of Bodies (II)
Date : 1979
Technique : Oil on canvas (HST)
Dimensions : 116 × 73 cm
Location : Unknown

Biographical / historical context

In 1979, André Breuillaud stands in the late phase of the CCL cycle, when the bodily torsions of 1976–1977 stretch out and gradually come undone within a denser, more troubled atmosphere.

The formal vocabulary takes on a sense of end-of-cycle: humanoid volumes disintegrate, figures lengthen into sheets and filaments, while backgrounds become saturated with red ochre and brown, as if matter were burning from within.

In this context, Cosmica bifrons stands as a pivotal work. It retains the fleshly roundness and fusion-driven continuity inherited from the “round” of earlier years, yet projects them into an unstable, dark and incandescent space, where the notion of the double—bifaciality, duplication of the gaze, split consciousness—becomes a structuring principle.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition is organized as a horizontal frieze: a chain of nude bodies, knotted into one another, crosses the canvas from left to right like a long wave. Anatomies answer one another through interlockings, repeated curves, and passages of volume, producing an organic continuity more than a narrative scene.

Figures are differentiated by contrasting postures—extensions, folds, torsions, knees drawn up, arms outstretched—yet remain caught within the same flow. Hands, often enlarged or simplified, act as hinges: they point, hold, and bind, as if union were effected through gesture as much as through flesh.

The chromatic range is dominated by warm oranges and red-browns that bring the flesh tones to incandescence. Against this heat, cool green-blue and violet zones push certain planes into a thick penumbra. The ground, more than a backdrop, behaves as a medium: it envelops the bodies and participates in their dissolution, letting “ocular” forms and dark patches surface, intensifying the sense of turbulence.

The whole conveys a feeling of matter under tension: contours do not sharply cut out the figures, but melt them into transitions, as if form still held—yet were on the verge of coming apart.

Comparative analysis / related works

By its bodily repertoire, the work speaks directly to the major ensembles of the CCL cycle around 1976–1977, where fusion is organized as a round and as continuous circulation. Here, that principle is maintained but stretched: circularity turns into a line of rupture, and the dance becomes drift.

A chromatic proximity to Essor du feu (1974) is perceptible in the incandescent reds and the sense of internal energy; however, the 1979 handling is distinguished by a more charcoal tonality, a more nocturnal depth, and a more advanced climate of disintegration.

Set beside Voluptuous Round (II) (1977), Cosmica bifrons appears as a twilight version of the motif: collective cohesion falters, and emphasis shifts toward doubling, perceptible in the superimposition of faces, scattered gazes, and centres of tension that split the space.

This late mutation installs a cosmology of rupture: space is no longer membranous and celestial, but almost telluric, and bodies seem at once to absorb and to dissolve within the same medium.

Justification of dating and attribution

The large format (116 × 73 cm) corresponds to the ambitious works of the late 1970s, in which Breuillaud develops extended, strongly atmospheric compositions.

The saturated red-brown palette, crossed by orange flares and green-blue counterpoints, together with the fused, turbulent handling, accords with the late pictorial language of the CCL cycle, subsequent to the more “sculptural” roundness of 1976–1977.

The transformation of the round into a serpentine frieze, the loss of contour clarity, and the impression of matter dissolving constitute converging indications for a dating around 1979.

The totality of formal and technical characteristics fits coherently within Breuillaud’s corpus, reinforcing the attribution to the artist.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Michelle Philippon collection (1992 catalogue reference).

Mentioned in an inventory of late CCL works (title not established by the artist in certain documents).

No verso documented to date; overall condition satisfactory, with particular vigilance for the darker zones, which are more prone to cracking.