Technical sheet
- Title: The Ordener Market
- Date: 1951
- Technique: Oil on canvas (HST)
- Dimensions: 46 × 38 cm
- Location: Private collection
Biographical / historical context
1951 marks a pivotal moment in the transition between the end of the geometrised Provençal period (PR2) and the first urban and mental expansions of the MP2/MP2M cycle.
Breuillaud lives between Paris—particularly the Montmartre / Ordener area—and regular returns to Provence.
The Ordener market, a working‑class district in the north of Paris, acts as a frontal counterpoint to the landscapes of Caromb: a territory saturated with rhythms, human flows and sharply colliding colour masses.
It is also a period of intensified poly‑modular research: fragmentation into chromatic blocks, diagonal shifts, rhythmic superimpositions inspired by crowd, noise and urban movement.
Formal / stylistic description
The work presents a dense, compact mosaic of angular geometric forms—trapezoids, polygons, incised zones—interlocked like the stalls and circulation of a market.
The palette is organised around burnt ochres, ferruginous reds, saturated violets, nocturnal blues and acid yellows, generating a vibratory atmosphere.
Light does not come from the sky: it seems to emanate from the objects themselves, as if each commodity produced its own intensity.
Repeated verticals—posts, silhouettes, stall uprights—scan the space in an almost percussive rhythm.
The formal treatment tends toward a narrative abstraction: no human figure is clearly delimited, yet human presence is suggested by the dynamic arrangements, masses in tension and directional diagonals.
Comparative analysis / related corpus
This painting clearly belongs to the MP2M segment:
- M for Montmartre / Market: urban scenes, tightened rhythms, dense colour;
- MP2 for the continuity of the geometric vocabulary inherited from 1949–1950.
It clearly foreshadows:
- the stylised markets and gatherings of 1952–53,
- the fragmented urban compositions of the early MP3 phase (where geometry becomes dramatic tension),
- certain 1951–52 researches in rapid gouaches and preparatory sheets now dispersed.
Compared with the Provençal landscapes of 1950 (PR2), this Ordener Market transposes the same geometric vocabulary into a compact, almost claustrophobic urban matter.
Compared with the Gabon (MP2‑1951‑004), it is the reverse.
Dating justification
The handling, palette and internal construction correspond closely to works dated 1951:
- tight fragmentation,
- absence of firm outlines inherited from the end of 1950,
- organisation in superimposed horizontal and vertical colour modules.
The iconographic provenance (Ordener area) also supports a 1951 dating, a period when Breuillaud regularly lived in the north of Paris.