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Lot Essay
Together with Karel Appel and Constant, Corneille was one of the founding members of Cobra. Rejecting rational Western culture as well as its rules and conventions concerning art, the international movement of Danish, Belgian and Dutch artists aimed to provoke while referring to forms of expression like primitive art, prehistoric art, art from the Middle Ages, children's drawings and art of the mentally handicapped. Corneille was an active member of the group, not only as a productive painter, but also as a poet for Cobra magazine.
Corneille is an autodidact in painting, a realist with a utopian vision of the world and of reality. His works are exuberant in colour and do seem like fragments from a poem or a narrative. This is not so surprising, as Corneille has written many letters to his artist's friends throughout his life while traveling to the most divergent places and cities all over the world. He always documented his experiences and ideas in writing as well as in paintings and drawings.
Besides his journeys, sources of information and inspiration for Corneille are also nature, ancient cultures, primeval tribes, classical music and literature.
In the paintings and drawings made around the 1950s, one can clearly see the inspiration of the Africa travels undertaken by him during that time. The translation of the impressions obtained over there - like the forces of nature and Primitive art into images - are obvious and omnipresent in his works of that period.
Corneille has developed a significant style from the 1950s onwards; playful, intimate paintings and gouaches with graphical lining; his palette of soft colors and his own world of imagination. This is all very much enforced by and retraceable to his encounter with the artist Jacques Doucet (1924-1994), who was on his turn a great admirer of the artist Joan Miró (1893-1983). This influence is still very visible in the works of Corneille.
In the following years, his paintings and drawings are significantly full with appearances of mythical themes and motives. The lining becomes more loose and light and on top of that an army of fabulous creatures comes dancing into the compositions. Birds and fishes with balloon like heads in fast lines and tender colors are hovering on the imaginary spaces.
Corneille is an autodidact in painting, a realist with a utopian vision of the world and of reality. His works are exuberant in colour and do seem like fragments from a poem or a narrative. This is not so surprising, as Corneille has written many letters to his artist's friends throughout his life while traveling to the most divergent places and cities all over the world. He always documented his experiences and ideas in writing as well as in paintings and drawings.
Besides his journeys, sources of information and inspiration for Corneille are also nature, ancient cultures, primeval tribes, classical music and literature.
In the paintings and drawings made around the 1950s, one can clearly see the inspiration of the Africa travels undertaken by him during that time. The translation of the impressions obtained over there - like the forces of nature and Primitive art into images - are obvious and omnipresent in his works of that period.
Corneille has developed a significant style from the 1950s onwards; playful, intimate paintings and gouaches with graphical lining; his palette of soft colors and his own world of imagination. This is all very much enforced by and retraceable to his encounter with the artist Jacques Doucet (1924-1994), who was on his turn a great admirer of the artist Joan Miró (1893-1983). This influence is still very visible in the works of Corneille.
In the following years, his paintings and drawings are significantly full with appearances of mythical themes and motives. The lining becomes more loose and light and on top of that an army of fabulous creatures comes dancing into the compositions. Birds and fishes with balloon like heads in fast lines and tender colors are hovering on the imaginary spaces.