Cobra (art)

Cobra (art), artists' group active in Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands from November 1948 to November 1951. The name is an acronym for the group's three centres: Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. The founders were the Dutch painters Karel Appel, Constant (Nieuwenhuis), and Corneille (Cornelis van Beverloo), who had all been members of the Experimental Group founded in Amsterdam in July 1948; the Danish painter Asger Jorn; and the Belgian writers Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret. Other artists later became members, including the Belgian painter Pierre Alechinsky.

Cobra artists were hostile to tradition and opposed to beauty and harmony in art; their works are highly expressionistic, usually incorporating figurative elements and symbols in a style inspired by primitive art, child art, and the art of the mentally ill. The paintings were often executed in thick, heavily applied oils and might also involve splattering, dripping, and smearing. In consequence, the work can be related to Action painting in America and Art Informel in the rest of Europe. The group called itself an “International of Experimental Artists” by analogy with the Communist International, and communal endeavour was a crucial part of its attitude. There was a group journal Cobra Revue, which ran from March 1949 to September 1951.

Like Action painting and Art Informel, Cobra was stimulated by Surrealism and also by the cultivated naïvety seen in the work of Joan Miró and Paul Klee. In Denmark the Surrealist group Linien (Line) had been founded in 1934, and it split into various factions that year. One of these factions was opposed to the meticulous dream imagery of “orthodox” Surrealism and instead favoured a more expressive, impulsive art. Also in Denmark, in 1941 Jorn launched the magazine Helhesten (Hell Horse), which included articles on primitive, naïve, and child art. In Belgium, Surrealism had taken root very early on, as shown by the work of such artists as René Magritte and Paul Delvaux. Of the three countries, the Netherlands had been least affected by avant-garde art, including Surrealism, and it was there that Cobra caused the greatest outcry. The first major Cobra exhibition, the International Exhibition of Experimental Art, was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in November 1949. Fights broke out during the evening poetry readings and the newspapers ran hysterical headlines attacking it. The other major show, the Second International Exhibition of Experimental Art, was held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège from October to November 1951 and was a much less eventful affair. After this the group voluntarily decided to disband.

The instructive, impulsive style of Cobra art is remarkably recognizable considering the range of artists involved: typical features include calligraphic elements, primitive human figures and other creatures, and a wild aggressiveness of execution, as seen for example in Appel's Men and Animals (1949), or Constant's Scorched Earth I (1951), both in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. The group's “anti-aesthetic” approach was summed up by Appel's comment: “I just mess about.” Though primarily applied to painting, there were also Cobra sculptures (for example, by the Danish artist Egill Jacobsen), but the less pliable materials of the medium made the results less satisfactory. Though the group ceased to exist after 1951, its style continued in the work of many of its members.