AB-62A-1962-001 — Dance of Fire (1962)

Technical information

Title: Dance of Fire
Date: 1962
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38 × 46 cm
Location: Private collection

Biographical / historical context

At the very beginning of the 1960s, Breuillaud gradually moves away from the highly structured MP2 compositions (1958–1961) and enters a transitional phase in which colour becomes the main agent of mutation.

1962 is marked by new investigations into transparency, softened internal tensions, and the first translucent red veils—a drift toward vibrating forms that are still not fully organised. Unlike the later, more telluric reds (1964–1966), the reds of 1962 are lighter, more diffuse and less organic, bearing the trace of an experimenter seeking light within the pigment itself.

Dance of Fire belongs to this foundational stage: a red emergence, still fragile, yet already animated by internal circulation.

Formal / stylistic description

The work rests almost entirely on a unified red field, but this unity is deceptive: the forms are in fact built from translucent strata that reveal, by transparency, semi-dissolved figures or fragments, hotter nuclei (oranges, dark reds), and cooler internal passages (dark green, deep blue).

The matter is mineral and thin, far from the textured thickness that will characterise 1964–66. The forms are not yet embryonic in the MP3 sense; they read rather as silhouette fragments, held back within the heat of the pigment.

The term “dance” is crucial: one senses circulation, a rotational flux, an impression of internal movement, driven by nervous red diagonals, an almost erased centre, and several zones where limbs, torsos or heads seem to be sketched. This translucent character is entirely consistent with the 62A segment.

Comparative analysis / related works

The work clearly falls before the heavier, more figurative dark reds of 1963-B and 1964-C, and after the geometric, sombre density of MP2 (1958–61).

It is close to the first “red veils” of 1962—very rare within the corpus—and remains without defined characters, unlike the 1963-B series where faces begin to emerge.

More abstract, it nevertheless already carries the internal tension that will characterise Limbes and Mask in Space (1964). This canvas is a key marker: it is the first appearance of an incandescent red, not as décor but as the primary agent of mutation—a theme that will return in 1964 and then in 1966.

Justification of dating and attribution

Converging elements confirm the 1962 dating (segment 62A): a diffuse red not encountered before 1962; the absence of the fine linear traits typical of 1963; the absence of the thick modelling of 1964–66; modest dimensions characteristic of 1962 experiments; and a search for translucency, unique within the 62A segment.

The work is signed at lower right, partially absorbed by the red field.