Technical information
- Title : House with a Red Roof Behind the Trees
- Date : c. 1940
- Technique : Oil on cardboard
- Dimensions : 30 × 24 cm
- Location : Private collection *
Biographical / historical context
This small oil on cardboard illustrates Breuillaud’s taste for modest, everyday motifs, captured at close range with an almost intimate immediacy. The 1940s saw an increasing number of such manageable formats in his work—well suited to rapid studies made from life or direct observation, preserving the memory of a precise light.
The subject—a house with a red roof among leafless trees—combines rural landscape with a reflection on framing. The painter does not seek a panoramic view; on the contrary, he chooses an obstructed vantage point, as if the eye had to make its way between the trunks.
Formal / stylistic description
Space is constructed in superposition: in the foreground, large vertical trunks and taut branches cut into the scene; at the centre, the house asserts itself through the warm triangle of its roof; in the background, more subdued volumes suggest other buildings and the continuity of the terrain.
The brushwork is direct, sometimes abrasive, and favours contrasts. The trunks are treated in bands of green, brown and grey, while the roof catches the light in oranges and reds. The whole retains a visible element of drawing, notably in the network of branches, which energises the surface and gives the scene an almost graphic vitality.
Comparative analysis / related works
The motif of built forms seen through trees appears repeatedly in Breuillaud’s work, as a compositional exercise in which nature serves as a frame. A screen of trunks allows him to play simultaneously with depth and flatness: the scene unfolds as a succession of planes, but the linear foreground constantly draws the eye back to the surface.
Compared with brighter landscapes of the South, this study favours earthier tonalities and a less dazzling light. Through its economy of means and vigorous line, it is close to his cardboard studies in which the artist seeks a rapid synthesis without losing the coherence of masses.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating to c. 1940 is consistent with the use of cardboard and with the facture: moderate impasto, visible reworkings, and simplified architectural volumes. The way the trees are treated in broad coloured bands, while retaining a nervous drawing of branches, corresponds to a phase in which Breuillaud combines construction by masses with spontaneity of gesture.
The attribution is reinforced by the signature visible at lower left, as well as by stylistic coherence: warm/cool contrasts, architecture reduced to simple forms, and depth articulated in successive planes. Signature: signed at lower left.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Private collection
Image data
Document type: colour photographic reproduction.
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud