Technical information
- Title : Cosmic II
- Date : 1966
- Technique : Pen and India ink on paper
- Dimensions : 50 × 65 cm
- Location : Unknown
Biographical / historical context
In 1966, alongside his major MP4 canvases, Breuillaud pursues a series of ink drawings that function as internal maps: places of condensation where density, narration, and superimposition are tested. Cosmic II belongs directly to this ambitious graphic corpus, conceived not as a mere commentary on painting, but as an autonomous space of elaboration. Through drawing, the artist can juxtapose, stack, and recombine fragments of his world, constructing a mental topography of metamorphoses.
Its reproduction in the Pillement catalogue (1967) situates the work in the same moment as Cosmic I and the great compositions of 1966. Cosmic II reflects the need to order conceptually an iconic universe precisely as it intensifies and becomes monumental in painting.
Formal / stylistic description
The horizontal composition is built as a layering of sheets and internal frames, like a mental collage. Across the surface, multiple scenes and figures interlock: profiles, masks, fragmented bodies, small intimate or embryonic episodes—each occupying a provisional compartment before extending into its neighbours.
At the centre, an embrace, left in reserve, acts as a magnetic focus, while, to the right, a large circular motif—a true closed “chamber”—condenses another scene, like a world within the world.
The line, tight and nervous, organizes the whole through hatchings and reprises: it does not simply shade, it produces a graphic matter, a density. Figures—often inverted or differently oriented—abolish any stable direction, creating the impression of a floating space.
This directional instability, combined with the proliferation of vignettes, turns the drawing into a living cartography in which thought spatializes itself as interconnected images.
Comparative analysis / related works
Set beside Cosmic I, Cosmic II shifts the cartography: the totemic axis gives way to a more topographic organization, made of layers and juxtapositions. The two works complement one another as two faces of the same system—one through verticalization, the other through a stratified spread.
The links with the major MP4 canvases of 1966 are structural: iconographic proliferation, embedded scenes, and reversals of plane directly anticipate the narrative density of The Garden of Masks.
Compared with the HSPap works of 1965, Cosmic II amplifies the process of cellular saturation while pushing it toward a more articulated, almost encyclopedic organization, where each fragment participates in a total network.
Justification of dating and attribution
The dating to 1966 is confirmed by its reproduction in the Pillement catalogue (1967), alongside Cosmic I, and by its strong stylistic affinity with MP4 graphic works of that year: continuous line, proliferation of micro-scenes, absence of flat tints, and hatchings that construct density.
Direct correspondences with the great contemporary compositions—particularly in mask motifs and embedded scenes—support the attribution to André Breuillaud.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Reproduced in the Pillement catalogue (1967), drawings section.
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud