Technical details
- Title : Le Barroux Seen from Caromb
- Date : c. 1948–1950
- Technique : Oil on cardboard
- Dimensions : 27 × 35 cm
- Location : Private collection*
Biographical / historical context
This view of villages on the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux belongs to the renewed focus on Provençal motifs at the end of the 1940s, when André Breuillaud consolidated an increasingly structured pictorial language.
The choice of an elevated viewpoint, the simplification of built volumes and the banded organisation of the hills testify to a gaze that is already “constructed”—less descriptive than synthetic: the landscape becomes a field for experimenting with the ordering of masses and colour.
Formal / stylistic description
The composition is dominated by the opposition between a dense bluish sky and the relief, arranged in superposed planes that lead the eye towards the perched village at the summit. The houses in the foreground, rendered as light volumes, act as an anchor and threshold, while the hills unfold in broad ribbons of violet and blue.
The trees (cypresses and dark masses) are reduced to almost calligraphic silhouettes, set in counterpoint to the architecture. The brushwork remains visible: impasto and striations rhythm the surfaces, giving the painting a nocturnal or crepuscular vibration.
Comparative analysis / related works
With its register-like construction and cool chromatic range, the work sits at the hinge between landscapes that are still atmospheric and the more “architectured” Provençal compositions of the early 1950s.
It can be compared with the 1950 landscapes in which Breuillaud accentuates the compartmentalisation of planes and the geometric simplification of villages and olive groves (notably AB-PR2-1950-002 and AB-PR2-1950-003).
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating “c. 1948–1950” is based on stylistic consistency with the Provençal views of this period: a predominantly blue/violet palette, simplified built volumes, and a composition organised in bands of relief.
The attribution to André Breuillaud is confirmed by the signature visible at lower left and by constant features of handling (brushwork, modelling, planar structure) within his post-war landscape corpus.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Current location: private collection.
© Bruno Restout - Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud