Underwood

Technical information

Title : Underwood
Date : c. 1941
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 65 × 55 cm
Location : Private collection*

Biographical / historical context

In the 1940s, Breuillaud devoted a significant part of his work to the study of natural motifs—underwood, woodland edges, trunks, embankments, and paths. Often painted directly from life, these subjects allowed him to explore the density of the paint surface and to build space through successive planes.

Painted in 1941, this study forms part of a search for internal rhythms: the verticals of the trees, the diagonals of the ground, and an alternation of dark and luminous zones.

Formal / stylistic description

The foreground is occupied by a woodpile, a mass of trunks and branches rendered with impasto and broken touches. The forms interlock, creating an organic barrier that holds the gaze before drawing it toward the centre of the composition.

Beyond, the underwood unfolds as a mosaic of greens, browns, and ochres, where the trees rise in irregular verticals. The light is filtered: it appears in diffuse patches on the ground and in a few clearings in the foliage, without a single source. The brushwork, sometimes rich and sometimes drier, conveys variations of texture—bark, moss, grasses—and gives the whole a continuous vibration.

The tight framing avoids the horizon: space is constructed through atmospheric depth and overlapping masses, in an almost tactile logic.

Comparative analysis / related works

The treatment of the underwood links this work to Breuillaud’s landscape studies in which nature becomes a field of pictorial experimentation. One finds his taste for contrasts of value (deep blacks and browns set against luminous greens) and for compositions free of anecdote, centred on structure.

Compared with his more open views—villages, hills, olive groves—this painting privileges density: the motif is brought close, the paint thickens, and the sense of depth arises more from the superimposition of planes than from linear perspective.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating to 1941 is consistent with a more concentrated handling and a slightly muted palette, characteristic of landscapes from this period. The attribution to André Breuillaud rests on his way of building vegetation with broad, rhythmic touches, and on the balance between observation and simplification. A painted signature, sometimes discreet in studies of this kind, is not essential for recognising this coherence of hand.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection*.