CoBrA

コブラ / 1948–1951 / Style / Avant-garde

A postwar avant-garde that linked Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Holding up the directness of children's drawings and folk art, it painted rough-brushed creatures in primary colors and turned distrust of refinement into an international style.

CoBrA — AI-generated interpretation 1
AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work
CoBrA — Karel Appel, glass mural (Slotervaart Hospital, Amsterdam) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Ceescamel
Karel Appel, glass mural (Slotervaart Hospital, Amsterdam) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Ceescamel
CoBrA — Pierre Alechinsky, colour lithograph (Province of Gelderland collection) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0
Pierre Alechinsky, colour lithograph (Province of Gelderland collection) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 · CC BY 3.0

At a glance

Visual cues

  • The directness of children's drawing
  • Rough-brushed creatures
  • Colliding primaries
  • The refusal of planning

Best used for

  • Children's books and building walls meant to startle before they instruct
  • Announcements for improvised or experimental music that should escape tidy layout

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Dictionary entry

Type
Letters drawn by hand, uneven in size, living beside the figures
Composition
No underdrawing, creatures pushed to the edges, gaps filled after
Material
Thick red, blue, yellow and black with brushmarks left showing
Caution
Aiming to look unskilled produces neither the speed of the hand nor a creature that exists, only a picture performing childishness.
Further study
Karel Appel / Asger Jorn / the journal Cobra

Related entries

More from Avant-garde

Continue through styles in the same Avant-garde family, prioritised by shared effects.

Browse all Avant-garde entries

Cite this entry

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Link
https://indexstyle.org/styles/cobra
Markdown
[CoBrA — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/cobra)
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<a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/cobra">CoBrA — IndexStyle</a>

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