AB-PR2-1950-015 — Chromatic Architecture (I) (1950)

Technical information

Title : Chromatic Architecture (I)
Date : 1950
Technique : Oil on Isorel (hardboard)
Dimensions : 32 × 41 cm
Location : Private collection

Biographical / historical context

In 1950, Breuillaud pushes part of his Provençal landscapes toward an increasingly “architectured” construction: the motif (village, hills, trees) becomes a framework of chromatic planes, where colour organizes space as much as it describes it.

Chromatic Architecture (I) belongs to this PR2 moment as a tightly focused study on rigid support, to be understood as the direct counterpart to Chromatic Architecture (II) (AB-PR2-1950-016).

Formal / stylistic description

The composition opens onto a pale slope in the foreground, treated in beige and rosy ochre, which forms a threshold and leads the eye toward an interlacing of trees and gardens. Two olive trunks—mauve and grey—stand out on the left; their nervous, broken linework answers the diagonals that structure the centre of the painting.

At the centre, vegetation is built with broad strokes of green, turquoise, and blue‑green, superimposed and cut through by darker passages. Pale houses, simplified into cream blocks, punctuate the heights; a few orange roofs create warm accents within an overall cooler dominance. The upper band closes with deep blues (sky or an indistinct ridge), densifying the atmosphere and giving the landscape an almost nocturnal gravity.

The touch remains highly visible—brushed flats, reworkings, scumbles, rapid cuts of planes. Construction proceeds not through systematic contour drawing but through the confrontation of values and hues: each zone functions like an assembly piece rather than a described object. The signature “Breuillaud” is visible at lower right.

Comparative analysis / related works

The dialogue with Chromatic Architecture (II) (AB-PR2-1950-016) clarifies the serial logic: the same motifs (village, olive trees, bluish distance) and the same desire to turn the landscape into a composition of masses.

By contrast, the present version appears freer and more overtly painterly: more scumbled transitions, less stabilized plane boundaries, and more tumultuous vegetation. It suggests a variation aimed at atmospheric intensity, whereas its counterpart stabilizes the reading through clearer blocks and a more “architectonic” hierarchy.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating to 1950 is consistent with the PR2 balance between still‑readable figuration (houses, olive trees, relief) and an already ambitious segmentation of space into chromatic masses.

The palette—structuring greens with punctual ochres and oranges, and a deep blue distance—corresponds to the phase in which Breuillaud transforms the landscape into an “architecture of colour.” Attribution is reinforced by this characteristic handling and by the signature visible on the front; photographs of the reverse and signature details would allow further refinement.