AB-PR2-1950-016 — Chromatic Architecture (II) (1950)

Technical information

Title : Chromatic Architecture (II)
Date : 1950
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 45 × 59 cm
Location : Private collection

Biographical / historical context

Within the PR2 segment, the year 1950 sees Breuillaud intensify a research in which the Provençal landscape becomes a dispositif of planes: houses, hills, and vegetation fuse into almost architectural chromatic blocks.

Chromatic Architecture (II) belongs to this series of refinements and is understood as the counterpart to Chromatic Architecture (I) (AB-PR2-1950-015), each exploring—through closely related means—the balance between legibility of the motif and the constructive autonomy of colour.

Formal / stylistic description

The scene depicts a village on a rise. In the foreground, a broad pale slope (light yellows and beiges) establishes a luminous base. Olive trees with pinkish trunks and dark green cypresses cut the space into verticals and guide the gaze toward the inhabited core of the landscape.

The village is rendered as pale blocks (whites and yellows) with orange roofs, set like simple volumes amid a network of muted greens. The distance is closed by a large blue hill beneath a violet‑grey sky, creating a strong contrast between cool atmosphere and the discreet warmth of the land and roofs.

Construction is more stabilized than in its counterpart: clearer contours, a more legible hierarchy of planes, and a regular alternation of masses. The signature “Breuillaud” is visible at lower right.

Comparative analysis / related works

The (I)/(II) pair articulates two modes of a single idea: to make the village an architecture of colour. Chromatic Architecture (II) tends toward synthesis—crisper village blocks, cypresses as vertical markers, and a unifying distance. Chromatic Architecture (I) appears, by comparison, more gestural and dense, with more turbulent vegetation and more scumbled transitions.

This complementarity strengthens the hypothesis of a variation series: the same motif tested at two degrees of stabilization—one more atmospheric and painterly, the other more constructed and hierarchized.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating to 1950 aligns with PR2 grammar: figuration remains legible, but it is organized into interlocking planes and frank contrasts, without the earlier naturalism and without the more tense systematization of later years.

Attribution to André Breuillaud is supported by the chromatic writing, the construction of the landscape by masses, and the signature visible on the front. Examination of the reverse (inscriptions, labels, dating) would help consolidate the context.