Technical sheet
- Title: Sacré-Cœur Seen from the Rooftops
- Date: c. 1930 (before 1936)
- Technique: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 82 × 98 cm
- Location: Town Hall d’Erquy (State deposit) / Inv. FNAC 53988
Biographical / historical context
This urban view belongs to Breuillaud’s Paris years, when he explored elevated viewpoints and rooftop panoramas. The Sacré‑Cœur, a monumental landmark on the Butte Montmartre, allows him to combine an immediately recognisable subject with an atmospheric painting: the city becomes a fabric of volumes, sloping planes and roof ridgelines, where architecture serves as a pretext for research into light and construction.
The provenance information—purchased directly from the artist in 1936—places the painting’s execution before that date. The subsequent deposit at Erquy Town Hall in 1956 (State property) confirms the work’s administrative trajectory.
Formal / stylistic description
The composition is built in successive planes. In the foreground, a network of roofs and chimneys forms a dark, solid belt—like a terrace that stabilises the image. In the middle ground, the rooftops thicken into a mosaic of blue‑grey volumes, punctuated by warm touches (brickwork, chimney stacks, ochre walls). In the distance, the silhouette of the Sacré‑Cœur—central dome and small bell tower—rises above the urban masses, slightly softened by the air.
The brushwork, fairly broad and supple, modulates surfaces without insisting on detail. Breuillaud favours relationships of value and the architecture of forms: roof edges, breaks in pitch and the verticals of flues organise a perspective that is both realistic and synthetic. The chromatic range remains restrained—dominant greys, blues and browns—revived by red‑orange accents that animate points of warmth (tiles, masonry).
The sky, painted in light tones, diffuses a gentle light without dramatisation, reinforcing an impression of calm distance. The signature appears discreetly at lower right, integrated into the paint layer.
Comparative analysis / related corpus
Through its elevated viewpoint and Montmartre subject, the canvas connects to the pre‑war Paris city views and urban landscapes in which Breuillaud approaches architecture as a landscape, paying particular attention to the geometry of planes and the vibration of surfaces.
The Sacré‑Cœur, reduced to a clear, legible form, reflects a simplifying approach reminiscent of post‑Impressionist constructions (building by planes, solidity of volumes) while remaining profoundly personal: the artist does not seek a spectacular effect, but overall coherence—an open “breathing space” between the mass of roofs and the sky.
Dating rationale
Two elements argue for a dating within the 1930s: first, the direct purchase from the artist in 1936 provides a terminus ante quem (the work must be earlier than or contemporary with that acquisition); second, the pictorial writing—solid construction, sober palette, synthetic figuration—corresponds to a Paris phase in which Breuillaud still treated identifiable urban subjects before his later move toward more experimental languages.
In the absence of a dated inscription on the painting, a cautious range of c. 1930–1936 seems most prudent. This could be narrowed if acquisition documents (invoice, correspondence, administrative notes) specify an exact year of execution.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Purchased from the artist: 1936.
State property: Inv. FNAC 53988.
Deposit: Erquy Town Hall, 1956.