AB-MP4-1970-006 — Neural Capillarities (c. 1970)

Technical information

Title : Neural Capillarities
Date : c. 1970
Technique : Pastel
Dimensions : 24 × 37 cm
Location : Private collection *

Biographical / historical context

In 1970, alongside the large oil paintings in which matter thickens and colour takes on a dramatic intensity, André Breuillaud pursues on paper a lighter, more immediate line of research.

The pastels of this moment function as internal laboratories: they lay bare the circulation of contour, the way figures form themselves into networks, and how colour can become a milieu rather than a background.

Within this experimental field specific to the MP4 phase, the work reveals an “anatomical” thinking of form, freed from the pigment density of canvas, and stands close in spirit to contemporary studies such as AB‑MP4‑1970‑003.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition unfolds as a single plane without horizon, where hybrid organisms seem to float in a diffuse atmosphere.

A supple, continuous black line draws elongated silhouettes, ovoid or circular heads, folded limbs, fragments of faces and small peripheral cells; the line connects more than it encloses, producing the impression of a nervous framework running beneath the surface.

At centre‑left, a large round head with multiplied features tilts as if pivoting in space, while at right an animal mask with whiskers faces a cluster of small schematic figures.

Near the upper register, a radiating red‑dark form bursts like an organic impulse that disturbs the network.

Colour—laid in pastel washes of ochre, brown, green and violet—does not model volumes; it bathes and permeates the forms, creating a cellular milieu in which contours dilate and merge. Reading proceeds by capillarity: the eye travels from one organism to another, following the drawing’s connections and chromatic densities.

Comparative analysis / related works

Through its logic of floating, its ovoid forms and the coexistence of a structuring contour with diffuse colour, this pastel aligns closely with the 1970 works on paper, in dialogue with AB‑MP4‑1970‑003 and, on another scale, with the cartographic pastels of the same year.

It also extends—while lightening—certain earlier matricial studies, and anticipates the later, more fluid inks in which the figure will tend to dissolve into an almost abstract biomorphism.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating around 1970 rests on several convergent indications: a slightly browned range crossed by cool greens and violets, the network construction of fragmented figures, and the functioning as a “floating plane” characteristic of works on paper from this year.

The very fine black line that organises without closing corresponds to the moment when Breuillaud tests the membrane as line and circulation rather than as constituted surface.