Technical information
- Title: Telluric Knot
- Date: 1964
- Technique: Pastel on paper
- Dimensions: 50 × 65 cm
- Location: Private collection
Biographical / historical context
In 1964, Breuillaud deepens a vein in which the figure, without disappearing, merges into broader structures—clusters, knots and networks—as though the living and the mineral shared a single matrix.
The composition is no longer built by juxtaposing silhouettes, but by concentrating energies into one form, worked like a relief.
Pastel on paper, with rubbings and incisions, turns the support into a true terrain: a surface inscribed with inner tensions, scars and traces, like a telluric memory.
Formal / stylistic description
The field is dominated by earthy reds, browns and ochres, laid in layers that suggest volcanic matter or heated clay.
At the centre, a large core is formed through superimpositions and rubbings: charcoal masses, inner glows, and lighter zones that seem to breathe beneath the surface.
The form reads as a tight interlacing—a knot of supple volumes crossed by scratches and incised lines. These lines, sometimes light and sometimes dark, act like sutures or veins, organising depth without opening any perspective.
A few greenish and yellowish flashes appear as inclusions within the block, introducing a cool vibration into the overall heat and reinforcing the ambiguity of the form—at once rock, flesh and deposit.
Comparative analysis / related works
The vocabulary of a single condensed form links this work to the research in which Breuillaud tips the image toward abstraction without losing an organic sensation.
One moves away from populated scenes and into an iconography of concentration: the image becomes a nucleus, a fragment of world, a mass under tension.
Here, incisions take on the role of drawing: they organise the cluster, suggest inner circulations and give the surface a skin-like quality.
This approach anticipates later developments in which the subject increasingly merges with matter itself.
Justification of dating and attribution
The 1964 date is confirmed by the “64” marking on the work and by its stylistic coherence with the mid-1960s: earthy palette, density of matter, organisation around a central core, and the use of incisions to structure the surface.
The whole corresponds to Breuillaud’s experiments on paper during this period and confirms its place within the corpus.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Private collection.
© Bruno Restout - Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud