Technical information
- Title : Rue Jules Vallès (Paris)
- Date : 1925
- Technique : Oil on canvas
- Dimensions : 65 × 81 cm
- Location : Unknown
Biographical / historical context
This work marks Breuillaud’s explicit entry into the ZM cycle, devoted to the peripheral zones of Paris. From 1925, he gradually moved away from central urban views to focus on the city’s fringes: sloping roads, vacant lots, discontinuous built alignments and cold‑season atmospheres. *Rue Jules Vallès* belongs to this transition—not as a precise topographical description, but as a sensitive capture of a marginal space in which structure and climate dominate the narrative.
Formal / stylistic description
The composition is organised by a slightly curved sloping road that crosses the scene and leads the eye toward a group of dark constructions. This roadway diagonal forms the painting’s main axis. On the left, leafless trees create a black, nervous mass; on the right, built volumes line up as compact blocks, tightening the space and reinforcing a corridor effect. A lamppost, set in an intermediate position, acts as a visual stop. The horizon is high, leaving a broad, pale—almost matte—band of sky that contrasts with the density of the earthly masses. The palette is dominated by browns, warm greys and blacks, with rare red‑orange accents on certain façades. The surface is worked through brushing and scumbling, with visible reworkings; architectural forms are simplified, sometimes broken by oblique strokes. The whole produces a heavy, cold atmosphere, where the road seems at once to open depth and to enclose the scene.
Comparative analysis / related works
Through its peripheral motif and its vocabulary of dark masses against a light ground, this canvas fully belongs to the mid‑1920s ZM corpus. It shares with other “zone” landscapes the reduced descriptive treatment and the importance given to value relationships. It differs, however, through the central role assigned to the street perspective and the structuring function of the lamppost, which stabilises the composition without easing its tension. Compared with later climate scenes, the dramaturgy relies here more on the circulation axis and the lateral compression of built forms than on any meteorological event.
Justification of dating
The 1925 date is consistent with the emergence of “zone” motifs, the subdued palette and the simplification of forms characteristic of the opening of the ZM cycle. The priority given to mass relationships and atmosphere—while retaining a readable anchoring in the motif—places the work in this initial phase of the segment.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Documentary reference published in Michelle Philippon (1992).