AB-MP4-1966-005 — To Have Done with Oneirism (1966)

Technical information

Title : To Have Done with Oneirism
Date : 1966
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 65 × 81 cm
Location : Unknown

Biographical / historical context

In 1966, Breuillaud stands at a turning point between the organic dream inherited from the final MP3 strata and the more structured cosmogony of MP4.

The title To Have Done with Oneirism—rare for its explicitly programmatic character—asserts a desire to break with an imaginary that had become too automatic, in order to enter a more constructed, more controlled space where apparitions obey a compositional logic.

At this moment, the artist re-examines his means: an intensive working of black and white, a refocusing of the image around a nucleus, and the elaboration of a light that cuts rather than caresses. The painting functions as a foundational gesture, both critical and pared down, upstream of the year’s major syntheses.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition is organized around a broad, almost circular dark field that acts like a miniature cosmic stage. Within it, several figures rise in matte whites, as if torn from the night by a light with no source.

At the centre, an inverted, taut body forms the main axis; its limbs stretch and fold back, giving the form a dynamic of torsion and resistance.

To the right, a figure presents a black mask—or a face-object—an element of concentrated opacity that sets the dense matter of black against the powdery white of flesh.

Other silhouettes, thinner and more evanescent, persist along the rim like the last vestiges of the oneirism the painting seeks to surpass. The whole is built on a subtle play of values, erasures, and reprises: contours hesitate, bodies contaminate one another, yet the scene remains held by a constellation-like organization—more analytical than drifting.

Comparative analysis / related works

Through its reduced palette and its principle of inner scene, the work is close to the nocturnal 1966 compositions of similar spirit, while asserting a more ample openness than the most condensed formats.

Where some pieces operate through concentration, To Have Done with Oneirism distributes the masses and organizes a more legible dramaturgy, as though space were seeking a new rule.

The painting retains traces of MP3 vocabulary—white membranes, translucent torsos, suspended faces—but space is no longer liquid: it stratifies, hardens, and tends toward an intimate architecture.

One senses, in germ, the principles that will unfold monumentally in the late 1966 syntheses: a heart of shadow, internal circulation, figures suspended within a total milieu.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating to 1966 accords with the handling of MP4 black-and-white oils: broadened white figures, nervous contours, organization centred on a circular field, and the tension between apparition and matricial ground.

The work’s mention and reproduction in the Pillement catalogue (1967) confirms its place within the corpus of that year.

The attribution to Breuillaud is supported by the concordance of these formal traits with other documented MP4 works. Its position between nocturnal research and large syntheses suggests a relatively early place within the internal chronology of 1966.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Mentioned and reproduced in the Pillement catalogue, 1967.