COBRA

COBRA (CoBrA) was a short-lived European avant-garde group, founded in Paris in November 1948 by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret; the name compresses their home cities: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. United by the manifesto "The Case Was Settled", they rejected both naturalism and sterile abstraction in favor of spontaneous experiment. Their semi-abstraction drew on children's drawing, folk and primitive art, mythology and the work of Klee and Miró: brilliant color, violent brushwork and distorted, often monstrous figures. The group scandalized the public at the Stedelijk Museum in 1949, collaborated on word-paintings and the Cobra journal, and dissolved after the 1951 Liège exhibition - yet it became a milestone for Tachisme and European abstract expressionism, and has been called the last avant-garde.

Defining characteristics

• Brilliant, unrestrained color applied with violent brushwork
• Semi-abstract distorted figures, childlike or subhuman
• Spontaneity and experiment preferred over polished finish
• Sources in children's drawings, folk art, myth and monsters
• Collaborative production: joint paintings, poems and word-paintings

Key figures

• Asger Jorn (1914-1973) — Danish painter, co-founder and the movement's fiercest theorist
• Karel Appel (1921-2006) — Dutch painter of exuberant, childlike figures and murals
• Constant (1920-2005) — Dutch co-founder who championed children's expression as the model
• Corneille (1922-2010) — Belgian painter of bright, mythic birds and landscapes
• Christian Dotremont (1922-1979) — Belgian poet who coined the name COBRA and wrote the manifesto

Example works

• Tristesse Blanche — Asger Jorn
• Peintures-Mot (word-paintings) — COBRA members in collaboration

Sources

• COBRA - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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