AB-MP3-1958-004 — Untitled (1958)

Technical information

Title: Untitled
Date: 1958
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 100 × 73 cm
Location: Private collection

Biographical / historical context

With “Neomorphosis (Vertical Colour)”, Breuillaud asserts in 1958 a tendency toward the transformation of forms: the architectured structure dissolves in favour of pictorial organisms made of membranes, ovals and flows.

The very notion of neomorphosis points to a search for formal birth, where the composition is built by successive metamorphoses rather than by the assembly of panels. In this period, the artist often combines a stable verticality—like a column—with a more mobile lateral field, allowing stability and apparition to coexist.

The painting thus brings together a will to order (vertical axis, distribution of masses) and an organic logic, in which each form seems to result from an inner thrust.

Formal / stylistic description

The vertical format is dominated by a large, pale, almost milky central form that functions as a nucleus. Around it, ovoid volumes and coloured bands wrap and coil, outlined by green lines that draw supple, continuous contours.

The palette opposes bluish greens, turquoises and deep blues to touches of oranges, reds and yellows, like internal flashes. A few darker, more opaque zones act as inclusions and densify the reading.

The material is more assertive than in the clear constructions: impastos, reprises and visible strata give the painting a tactile presence, while fused colour transitions suggest volumes rather than strict flats. Coloured verticals, sometimes interrupted, set up a rhythm of rise and fall, while lateral ovals create counterweights that avoid frontal symmetry.

Comparative analysis / related works

This piece stands at the junction between the network abstractions of 1957–1958 and the more atmospheric “nebulae” of 1959. One finds the logic of curved signs and overlay, but integrated into a verticality that still recalls structured compositions.

The green contour, used here as an operator of metamorphosis, links the work to other 1958 trials in which forms seem to swell, contract and slide over one another. It marks an important step in the evolution toward a more organic, more “living” abstraction.

One can see a moment when contour line, still very active, begins to yield to more fused transitions, foreshadowing the edge dissolutions characteristic of the 1959 works.

Justification of dating and attribution

The signature “Breuillaud” is legible at lower right, and the date “58” appears at lower left, confirming the dating.

Attribution is reinforced by stylistic coherence: coloured contours, a structuring verticality, and a palette combining greenish cools with orange warms, characteristic of the 1958 production. The work convincingly fits within the series of formal metamorphosis research undertaken at that date.