Technical information
- Title : Untitled
- Date : c. 1940
- Technique : Oil on canvas
- Dimensions : 38 × 65 cm
- Location : Private collection
Biographical / historical context
At the turn of the 1940s, André Breuillaud maintained a regular practice of landscape painting, often from nature, which allowed him to pursue his vocabulary of forms despite a troubled context. These views of undergrowth and paths, away from urban scenes, testify to a search for nearby motifs, immediately available, in which slow observation of the terrain replaces anecdote.
The interest here lies in the dynamics of the trunks and in the sensation of passage: the landscape is not a backdrop but a space to be traversed. Such a motif accords with open-air painting attentive to variations of filtered light, and with an economy of means that privileges structure and material.
Formal / stylistic description
The composition is organised around a winding track that disappears into the undergrowth. The trees, leaning and twisted, form a kind of irregular vault; their trunks rhythm the space in successive diagonals, as if the path were pulling the eye forward in jolts.
The palette combines warm browns, ochres and subdued greens, heightened by a few cooler light passages in the distance. The brushwork, laid in washes and rubbings, suggests the density of the ground and the dampness of the banks; in places it lets the support show through, reinforcing the impression of spontaneity and direct work.
Comparative analysis / related works
The work belongs to Breuillaud’s corpus of wooded landscapes, in which the tree becomes a structural motif. Here again, the construction proceeds by masses rather than descriptive detail: the foliage is treated as volumes, while the ground is articulated by bands of colour indicating slope and depth.
Compared with more open views (fields, villages or riverbanks), this compressed scene emphasises the rhythm of the trunks and a sense of enclosure. The simplification of forms, the vigour of diagonals and the materiality of the paint bring this study close to other experiments from the same period, in which composition takes precedence over an inventory of the real.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating to c. 1940 is compatible with the handling: free yet structured brushwork, impasto concentrated in shadow areas, and space organised through large modulated planes. The simplification of foliage and the modelling of trunks through warm/cool contrasts correspond to a practice observed in Breuillaud’s landscapes of the early 1940s.
The attribution rests on these stylistic constants: a preference for diagonals, the articulation of planes by coloured bands, and the pursuit of a constructed depth without marked linear perspective. No signature is clearly legible on the available reproduction, but the set of formal criteria remains consistent with his corpus. Signature: not clearly legible on the available reproduction.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
No provenance, exhibition or publication is documented to date for this work.
Image data
Document type: colour photographic reproduction.
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud