Technical information
- Title : Autumn Scene
- Date : 1939
- Technique : Oil on canvas
- Dimensions : 35 × 55 cm
- Location : Private collection*
Biographical / historical context
On the eve of the war, Breuillaud develops a rural vein in which everyday peasant life becomes a motif of quiet gravity. In these works, he does not seek folkloric anecdote; he fixes slow rhythms, ordinary gestures, and an organic relationship to the land. The agricultural world—teams, carts, and gnarled trees—appears as a counterpoint to the instability of the times.
Autumn Scene belongs to this movement. The painting condenses a season and an atmosphere more than a narrative. Space is treated as a rustic stage: a few figures, a team, a path and some trees are enough to install an end‑of‑year climate in which life continues with economy of means and an almost meditative sobriety.
Formal / stylistic description
The composition is dominated by a frieze of great trees with massive trunks. Their branches unfurl in serpentine curves and, across the full width, draw a graphic framework that organises the space. This vegetal architecture provides the work’s principal tension: it links the different motifs and maintains unity despite the diversity of episodes.
In the foreground, at left, a young woman seated on a log in profile introduces a contemplative note. Her pale dress stands out against the green‑brown tones of the ground, and her stillness echoes the general slowness. At centre, a team of red oxen advances, modelled with a palpable sense of weight and traction: brown‑reds, violet shadows and lighter highlights convey musculature and bodily warmth.
At right, a loaded cart with large wheels is driven by a dark figure; a second silhouette near the background completes the scene. The figures are deliberately reduced: they exist as presences, without insistent psychological detail, in order to preserve the primacy of rhythm and atmosphere.
Light comes from a low, milky sky. It diffuses bluish greys and cool ochres that envelop the landscape and intensify the feeling of autumn. The paint is thick, laid in visible touches. Space is slightly flattened—almost decorative—yet never abstract: depth is built through the repetition of trees and the recession of the path, rather than through strict perspectival rendering.
Comparative analysis / related works
Autumn Scene belongs to the late‑1930s rural scenes in which Breuillaud combines a construction by masses with a more narrative dimension, without ever tipping into illustration. The trees—true living columns—recall his constant interest in the architecture of natural forms: here they become actors that frame and carry the scene.
Compared with the more synthetic Provençal landscapes of the same period, the work retains a more fleshly paint handling and a taste for minimal narrative. It also anticipates—through the emphasis on curving lines and the network of branches—an evolution toward a more graphic idiom at the threshold of the 1940s, in which drawing more strongly structures space.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating 1939 is consistent with the late‑decade palette, dominated by brown‑reds and muted greens, and with the combination of still‑vibrant material and an organisation that is already highly constructed. The peasant motif—treated as a slow, dense scene—corresponds to the moment when Breuillaud condenses his subjects and seeks an image‑synthesis of the rural world.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Private collection *
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud