AB-CCL-1972-002 — Origin (1972)

Technical information

Title : Origin
Date : 1972
Technique : Oil on canvas (HST)
Dimensions : 89 × 116 cm
Location : Private collection

Biographical / historical context

The year 1972 marks a turning point in Breuillaud’s work: after the red phase of 1971—saturated with implosions, dark verticalities, and figures caught in magma—painting turns toward a more luminous and metaphysical exploration. The CCL period (Cosmic–Cellular–Luminous) transforms matter into a medium of genesis: instead of grinding bodies down, it lets them appear out of light, like beings in the process of being born.

Origin belongs among the founding markers of this moment. The canvas clarifies the idea of a generative nucleus, a source from which still‑fragile entities unfold. The mention of a reverse dated “72” in the source notice confirms its place in the trajectory.

Formal / stylistic description

A vast yellow‑orange circular form dominates the center of the composition, set like a disc of heat within a red‑brown field. This circle is not a descriptive sun: it functions as a matrix, a receptive volume whose light radiates in concentric gradations and creates a zone of gestation.

Within this nucleus, a dark black‑and‑ochre structure stretches vertically and runs downward in a drip. It acts like an axis—almost a cord—within which germs lodge: a pale oval, a pocket, an embryonic form. Birth takes place in the interstice between central darkness and the surrounding clarity.

Around this focus, pale green and light filamentary figures are arranged at the periphery: liquid silhouettes, heads reduced to an eye, bodies that seem to grow like roots. They are no longer bogged down in matter, but drawn toward light, sliding from the nucleus toward the edges of the canvas. The red, pacified, is no longer the aggression of 1971: it serves as border, humus, a warm reserve upon which the living takes hold.

Comparative analysis / related works

Compared with Obsession—a tighter, more carnal work—Origin opens the field and stages a broader space of genesis in which being distributes itself around a radiant center. The circle‑nucleus principle anticipates the cosmic compositions of 1972–1973, even if the yellow‑ochre dominance here gives a warmer, more matricial orientation than the later blues.

Against the magmas of 1971, the dark verticality remains as a memory, but its meaning is reversed: the axis is no longer a fall or a fracture; it becomes a channel of birth. This inversion makes the canvas a pivot—both continuity and recomposition—in the establishment of a cosmico‑cellular grammar.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1972 dating, supported by the mention of a reverse dated “72” in the source notice, accords with the plastic signs: emergence of a luminous circular nucleus, translucent and filamentary peripheral figures, and the transformation of red into a nutritive border. The coexistence of a dark memory and matricial light corresponds precisely to the passage from late 1971 to early 1972.

The attribution aligns with Breuillaud’s characteristic approach: articulation of a generative focus, construction of hybrid entities, and the use of color as a medium of birth rather than as décor.