AB-PN-1935-002 — Untitled (c. 1935)

Technical information

Title : Untitled
Date : c. 1935
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 81 × 65 cm
Location : Private collection *

Biographical / historical context

Dated c. 1935, this canvas belongs to a phase in which Breuillaud still favours landscape as a field of experimentation, before the more radical syntheses of the following decades. The subject—an underwood dominated by a monumental tree—allows him to unite close observation with an energetic pictorial language attentive to the way light passes through foliage.

Formal / stylistic description

The composition is structured by the vertical thrust of a powerful trunk placed slightly left of centre, whose branches spread into a network that covers most of the surface. Around this main mass, other trunks recede into depth, creating an alternation of solids and voids and a rhythm of vegetal porticos.

Light is rendered in broken touches, as if filtered through the canopy: pale flashes accent the twists of the bark and animate the green expanses. The warmer ground provides a stable base and heightens the clearing effect. The palette combines greens and yellows for the foliage; browns, mauves, and oranges for the trunks; with cooler blues in openings of sky and in shadows.

The brushwork, visible and at times nervous, privileges the impression of matter and movement over meticulous description. The modelling of the trunk is built through superimposed warm and cool tones, giving the tree an almost sculptural presence.

Comparative analysis / related works

The work belongs to a group of landscapes in which the tree becomes a central motif, not only descriptive but also plastic: the composition’s framework and an instrument of rhythm and depth. The way space is constructed through repeated trunks and circulating light anticipates, in its own manner, Breuillaud’s later research on recurring Provençal motifs, where the subject is progressively simplified in favour of relationships between masses and colours.

Compared with more panoramic landscapes, this canvas privileges the immediate experience of place: proximity of the trunk, immersion under the canopy, and the vibration of the painted matter. Nature is less a backdrop than a field of forces, organized by verticality, branch diagonals, and chromatic modulation.

Justification of dating and attribution

The dating c. 1935 is consistent with a treatment still largely grounded in observation, yet already driven by an expressive touch and a firmly structured composition. The attention paid to the trunk’s modelling and to filtered light points to research centred on materiality and chromatic vibration.

The attribution to André Breuillaud is confirmed by the signature visible at lower right, and by stylistic coherence with his landscapes from this period: construction by masses, a nuanced palette of greens and ochres, and a dynamic brush.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection.

Public sale: Me Ruellan, Vannes, 21 February 2026.