Technical information
- Title : Silhouettes Engulfed by the Luminous Matrix
- Date : 1970
- Technique : Oil on canvas
- Dimensions : 195 × 114 cm
- Location : Private collection *
Biographical / historical context
By its monumental scale and the complexity of its scene, this 1970 oil painting stands among the high points of the MP4 period, when Breuillaud constructs vast organic compositions around luminous masses and networks of figures.
After the incandescent works of 1969 and the more enclosed universes of the same turning point, the artist develops here a broad matricial architecture in which inner light structures the whole without dissolving the density of the paint.
The large format places the work in continuity with the major compositions of these years, some of which are documented around the 1972 Chave catalogue.
Formal / stylistic description
Two luminous discs—one central, the other higher up—organise the composition like active membranes: vibrating from yellow to mandarin, they seem to emit filaments, tentacles and passages that irrigate the scene.
Against a red‑orange ground crossed by acid greens and nocturnal blues, a multitude of figures arranges itself along a vertical axis: elongated bodies, faces punctuated by isolated eyes, dissolved profiles, limbs that clutch or stretch.
Colour works through contrasts of transparency and opacity; certain forms appear glassy, others denser—most notably a blue‑black presence near the centre, which acts as a pivot and intensifies depth.
On the periphery, phantom heads and double faces emerge in negative, as if the canvas retained the memory of “silhouettes engulfed by the luminous matrix”.
Comparative analysis / related works
The work belongs to a set of large MP4 formats from the 1969–1971 turning point: it dialogues with AB‑MP4‑1970‑001 and AB‑MP4‑1970‑002 through its dominance of reds and its organisation of humanoid presences into a network, while offering here the most “solar” and most structured formulation, founded on the centrality of circular membranes.
It can be read as a luminous counterpart to Sibylline Universe (1970), which proposes a nocturnal and more closed version of the same world.
At a distance, the proliferation of faces recalls earlier works such as The Garden of Masks (1966), but the figures here are more thoroughly absorbed by the overall architecture and by the discs’ radiance.
Justification of dating and attribution
The 1970 dating is confirmed by a set of formal criteria specific to the MP4 period of 1969–1971: an incandescent orange palette associated with acid greens and blue‑blacks, a vertical construction on a grand scale, the use of the circular membrane as a structuring motif, and the recurrent presence of more opaque blue‑black entities.
The combination of richly worked areas with translucent zones, as well as the density of the internal drawing, distinguishes the work from later stages in which paint becomes more liquid and more luminous.
The whole is fully consistent with the monumental corpus of 1970 and supports the attribution to André Breuillaud.
© Bruno Restout — Catalogue raisonné André Breuillaud