AB-PN-1936-003 — The Little River (1936)

Technical information

Title : The Little River
Date : 1936
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 65 × 81 cm
Location : Private collection *

Biographical / historical context

In 1936, Breuillaud broadens the register of his PN period: after the years 1933–1935 dominated by intimacy (portraits, interiors, still lifes), landscape regains a central function. The motif is no longer simply a setting but a site of experimentation, where the artist tests paint, colour, and the construction of the pictorial plane.

This small river scene—probably drawn from a stay in the provinces—condenses a direct relationship to the motif. Nature is not described with meticulous detail; it is rebuilt through masses, rhythms, and thermal oppositions. The work thus bears witness to a moment in which Breuillaud seeks a balance between fidelity to concrete observation and an increasingly asserted freedom of touch.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition unfolds horizontally, structured by an alternation of warm and cool planes. In the foreground, a dark ribbon of water crosses the base of the canvas and imposes a fresh cut. The bank is cluttered with tall grasses and rocks treated with nervous, almost sculpted impasto, where paint catches the light in places and dies out elsewhere.

The middle ground is dominated by a broad, tawny hill, worked in layered strokes. The earth is animated by accents of red, mauve, and green that transform relief into a vibrating surface. Breuillaud does not seek tonal unity; he builds an internal respiration, as if the hill were an organism traversed by pulses of colour.

In the background, a mass of trees closes the space. The foliage, painted with ample rounded gestures, forms a dark crown that stabilises the composition. The sky—clear and slightly bluish—remains mobile: rosier passages and milky scumbles install a diffuse light, without sharp shadows, enveloping the whole and keeping the scene in a late-day atmosphere.

The overall effect rests on the tension between the movement of the brushstroke and the solidity of the masses. The river, through its dark band, prevents the chromatic rise from dissolving; conversely, the hill, through its warmth, prevents the water from closing the canvas into uniform coldness. This dialectic gives the landscape a contained energy—both sensual and constructed.

Comparative analysis / related works

Through its free paint surface and warm harmonies, *The Little River* belongs to the landscape series of the second half of the 1930s, when Breuillaud turns the natural motif into a laboratory of matter. The work extends open-air research already perceptible in 1934 countryside scenes, but radicalises it: brushwork becomes thicker, colour bolder, and the surface more insistently worked in relief.

One can also recognise an affinity with certain PN still lifes in the way material presence is constructed: as in those object compositions, things are not merely represented—they are weighed, placed, thickened. Here, the river plays a role comparable to a drapery or tabletop: a supporting plane that organises the masses and gives the viewer’s eye a trajectory.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1936 dating fully accords with the state of the handling: more generous impasto than in earlier landscapes, a palette in which mauves and reds enter the heart of the earth tones, and a construction through rounded masses that anticipates landscape developments of the late 1930s. The ensemble corresponds to a phase of liberated touch while retaining a stable architecture characteristic of this moment in the corpus.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection.