Technical information
- Title : Untitled
- Date : 1972
- Technique : Oil on Isorel
- Dimensions : 41 × 33 cm
- Location : Private collection
Biographical / historical context
Produced in 1972, this work belongs to a phase in which Breuillaud tests the figure through reduced apparitions—less narrative than emblematic—as if the body were having to emerge from a nocturnal or mineral field.
At the turning point of the early 1970s, these silhouettes condense the idea of emergence: they do not settle into a descriptive space, but appear on the very surface, at the threshold between presence and erasure.
Formal / stylistic description
The vertical composition is dominated by two bluish anthropomorphic forms standing close to one another. With raised arms and arched torsos, they establish a minimal, almost ritual gesture.
Their granular, dark bodies are enlivened by lighter accents at the torso and pelvis—points of intensity surfacing beneath the skin of the paint. The contours do not follow a continuous drawing: they seem incised or scratched, revealing a pale line that functions like a scar and fixes the fluctuating boundary of the silhouettes.
The background, far from being neutral, is crossed by veins and eddies, suggesting a broader matrix from which these figures might be emanations.
Comparative analysis / related works
Through its chromatic restraint and the emblematic frontality of the motif, the work stands apart from the more luxuriant compositions of the same moment.
It nonetheless extends a logic of apparition in which the figure is constructed as much as it is painted: the contour becomes a boundary, a suture, the trace of a passage, rather than a descriptive tool.
Within the early‑1970s corpus, this reduction to signal‑silhouettes heightens the sense of icon and imprint, focusing attention on the tension between the formlessness of the ground and the bodies’ attempt at verticality.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating to 1972 is supported by the mention of a signature and a year inscribed on the reverse, as well as by the cold, dark palette animated by bluish highlights, characteristic of this period.
The choice of a rigid support and a handling built from scratches, absorbed zones, and luminous rework correspond to Breuillaud’s contemporary investigations into imprint and the emergence of the figure.
Taken together, these formal and documentary criteria confirm a secure attribution.
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud