Technical information
- Title : The Reverse Side of the Mirror
- Date : 1965
- Technique : Oil on paper
- Dimensions : 50 × 65 cm
- Location : Unknown
Biographical / historical context
In 1965, Breuillaud reaches a tipping point within Mutation Plastique III: the exploration of membranes, internal symbioses, and slowly transforming forms intensifies, while work on paper plays the role of an inner studio. In these sheets—often in muted tonalities—he tests the limits of fragmentation, reversals of form, and hybridizations, before later chromatic expansions unfold more fully.
The Reverse Side of the Mirror expresses precisely this desire to pass “behind the skin”: less a scene than an examination from within, as if painting were scrutinizing the hidden face of a membrane and the metamorphosis of a cosmic body folded back upon itself.
Formal / stylistic description
At the centre, a large organic figure unfolds in a folded position, close to a foetal coil, without a closed contour. Modelling arises from rubbings, white reserves, and greyed zones heightened with black, giving the impression of a translucent body observed against the light.
Around this nucleus, a constellation of small rounded forms—bubbles or cellular pockets—gravitates across the field, like a string of embryonic elements marking the edge of the composition.
The background, a deep grey, absorbs the scene and reinforces the idea of a dense, liquid milieu in which the figure seems to float.
Engraved lines and light incisions structure the form without rigidifying it: they fissure, connect, and stretch, keeping the organism open, in a state of mutation.
Comparative analysis / related works
The work continues MP3 research of 1963–1964, when turning organisms and membranous structures already introduced the idea of an interior of the world. A notable shift appears here: unlike certain more diffuse compositions of 1964, the central presence dominates and imposes a more concentrated, almost sculptural reading within a peripheral cellular universe.
The constellation of bubbles, the white reserves, and the use of a linear network extend earlier achievements while announcing later studies in which nuclei and internal forms will be further isolated and set under tension.
The paper support, through its density and sense of enclosure, reinforces the motif’s introspective dimension.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating to 1965 is supported by the density of contrasts, the use of white as an inner volume, and the nature of the linear network, looser than in certain 1964 works yet still less scattered than in later developments.
The composition—centred on a single figure amid cellular elements—corresponds to a moment when Breuillaud tightens his vocabulary around more dominant presences.
The reproduction noted in Georges Pillement’s 1967 publication reinforces this chronological anchoring and confirms the attribution to the artist.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Reproduced in Georges Pillement, Visages du Monde, 1967 (Mutation Plastique section). Private collection (current location unknown).
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud