Phosphorescent Beings (1969)

Technical information

Title : Phosphorescent Beings
Date : 1969
Technique : Oil on isorel (hardboard)
Dimensions : 46 × 55 cm
Location : Private collection *

Biographical / historical context

In 1969, Breuillaud reaches a form of maturity in his research on metamorphic figures: narrative dissolves in favor of an inner drama, where bodies become floating presences—half-human, half-organism. The scene darkens and takes on a nocturnal tonality that turns space into a membrane.

The isorel support allows for dense matter and a more incisive line. Within this framework, the artist fixes unstable silhouettes through heightened contours while letting color diffuse into halos. The work thus suggests an iconography of the in-between—wakefulness, dream, apparition—typical of this late phase.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition unfolds on a dark blue ground, almost abyssal, modulated by lighter passages and green iridescences. Within this space, several entities stand out like a silent procession: at left, a compact anthropomorphic form; at center, a rounded volume that seems suspended; at right, a vertical totemic silhouette whose gesture accompanies a luminous sphere.

Drawing circulates freely: nervous lines, spirals, and punctuations underline contours and inscribe “signs” into the night. Some zones thicken into paste, others remain thin and washed, creating an atmospheric depth rather than a constructed space. The range privileges greens and turquoises, warmed by ochre-red touches and pale yellow lights that suggest an internal phosphorescence.

A central motif, akin to a mask or stylized skull with dark eyes, introduces an expressive tension. It acts as a point of gravity while the other forms coil in supple arcs. Despite the fragmentation, the whole retains a legible rhythm: lines link the bodies, and small luminous orbits scattered in the background maintain the cohesion of this nocturnal “theatre.”

Comparative analysis / related works

This work belongs to the family of late-1960s compositions in which Breuillaud constructs a theatre of biomorphic presences lit from within. The blue-green dominant and the use of luminous halos reinforce a cosmic or submarine reading, frequent in the corpus at the 1969–1970 threshold.

Compared with more incandescent pieces, often dominated by reds, this one stands out for an atmosphere of silent wakefulness and for the coexistence of “totemic” forms (vertical, almost architectural) and softer masses (ovals, membranes). This opposition between framework and fluidity, stability and mutation, is one of the major drivers of the artist’s late vocabulary.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1969 dating is confirmed by the “69” inscription at lower left and the signature at lower right. The stylistic characteristics—a nocturnal blue-green range, internal halos, biomorphic figures between human and organism, outlines reinforced in black—correspond fully to the language Breuillaud develops at the end of the 1960s.

Attribution is strengthened by the way form arises from the ground, by the circulation of drawing that links the entities, and by the presence of masks with strongly marked eyes—recurring signs in his late work. The whole coheres with a moment of transition in which night becomes the primary milieu of apparition.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection *