The Village in Spring

Technical information

Title : The Village in Spring
Date : 1950
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 38 × 46 cm
Location : Private collection

Biographical / historical context

Small in format yet significant within the “structuring mosaic” of 1950, this painting tests a repetitive motif in which houses, hills and trees become interchangeable modules.

At this stage of the PR2 cycle, the artist experiments with an almost abstract language without completely breaking with a reading of reality. The compression of planes and the logic of a colour chequerboard are typical of this phase of rapid trials, often undertaken on small formats.

The work thus shows one of the most experimental facets of PR2, running in parallel to larger and more readily legible landscapes.

Formal / stylistic description

The village is rendered as a dense patchwork, dominated by a range of pinks, greens, blues and oranges, arranged in irregular plates. Volumes are not outlined; they emerge through contrasts of value and hue.

The foreground trees are reduced to rounded masses, caught within the same faceting system as the roofs and hills. The sky is almost absorbed by the overall compression of planes.

Short, tessellated strokes accentuate the deliberate “puzzle” effect; the whole forms a closed, compact structure that privileges construction over description.

Comparative analysis / related works

One finds here the constructive logic of PR2-1950-003, but reduced to a more modular and more schematic version, in which the motif lends itself to internal permutations.

Compared with more breathing landscapes (PR2-1950-001) or those structured by diagonals (PR2-1950-002), this work privileges density and surface saturation.

It clarifies the shift, in 1950–1951, from a geometricisation still tied to the motif toward a fragmentation system that can, at times, tend toward abstraction.

Justification of dating and attribution

The saturated pastel palette, the still “soft” geometricisation (without the later PR3 shatterings), and the use of a small exploratory format place the work logically in 1950.

The attribution to André Breuillaud is retained on the basis of coherence with PR2 procedures (chromatic chequerboard, angular modules, tessellated touch) and stylistic continuity with landscapes from the same year.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection.