AB-MP2-1957-001 — A Child’s Dream (c. 1957)

Technical information

Title: A Child’s Dream
Date: c. 1957
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38 × 61 cm
Location: Private collection

Biographical / historical context

Around 1957, Breuillaud deepens a more imagistic abstraction, in which allusions to mask, face, animal or assembled objects emerge. A Child’s Dream (dated circa) belongs to this zone of transition between sign and figure: the artist does not return to representation, but lets a mental iconography surface—close to dream and play—as if the canvas recorded associations rather than a stable motif.

This period also sees heightened attention to the narrative power of titles: they guide the reading without fixing it, leaving the viewer to connect forms. In this context, Breuillaud works with the memory of elementary shapes (eye, profile, mouth, horn, wing), treated as modules and recomposed over a mosaic-like grid that retains something of a child’s drawing: simplification, frontality and the intensity of contrasts.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition takes the form of a large central oval, both a frame and a “face.” Two circular forms evoke eyes; a light triangle suggests a nose; darker lateral surfaces may recall cheeks, appendages or stylised ears.

Breuillaud articulates these signs on a grid of interlocking colour planes, like a puzzle: turquoises, water-greens, pinks, oranges, browns and deep blues. Darker contours stabilise the assembly and serve as hinges between fragments, while some deliberately irregular flats reveal brush reprises and discreet pentimenti.

The contrast between the blue ground and the warmer central zone reinforces the impression of an apparition; conversely, darker zones “hold” the form and prevent anecdote. The paint is relatively smooth yet lively: rubbings, transparencies and superimpositions modulate volumes and give the signs a tactile presence.

Comparative analysis / related works

The principle of a “structure-face” connects the work to several Breuillaud compositions in which a figure is sensed without narrative, simply through the arrangement of signs. Unlike contemporary urban landscapes, A Child’s Dream replaces the verticality of façades with a centred, quasi-totemic organisation, pointing to a more interior register.

It may also be set against the movement works (ellipses, rotations): here again the oval acts as an armature, but it does not trigger a whirlwind; it serves as an inscription field for a constellation of forms. This tension between stability (oval, relative symmetry) and drift (fragments, displacements) corresponds to the idea of dream: an order forms, but remains mobile.

Finally, the chromatic range—alternating acidulated tones with more subdued reserves—announces certain late-1950s researches, where Breuillaud combines a mosaic of planes with more clearly hierarchised signs.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating “c. 1957” aligns with the chromatic and formal evolution observed in late-1950s works: more unified grounds, more legible signs, and the prominence of oval or central structures.

The work is signed at lower right; the signature matches other known Breuillaud signatures. The title, modular construction, and balance between abstraction and figurative allusion reinforce the attribution. The choice of oil on canvas at this format corresponds to more “finished” research pieces than his study cardboards, consistent with the synthesis visible here.