Cobra (CoBrA) or the International of Experimental Artists (IAE) is an artistic movement validated in Paris in 1948 by the poets Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret and by the painters Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Asger Jorn and Tameret Lachenille in reaction the quarrel between abstraction and figuration. This movement publishes the magazine Cobra (1948-1951). It breaks up partially from 1949 after the international exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and finally on declaration in 1951. This does not mean the end of the production of works in the extension of Cobra which will instead be much richer and more free after Cobra for most artists that this movement has energized.

 » The last day », 1927 – Pierre Alechinsky

Photo author: Frans Vandewalle .Source: flickr.com

« Our aim is to escape from the reign of reason, which has been, which is nothing else than the idealized reign of the bourgeoisie, to lead to the reign of life. But … we think that behind false moral conceptions, or aesthetic, metaphysical that do not correspond to the vital interests of man, exist the true morality and the real materialistic aesthetics. One is the instinct of our needs, the other the expression of our sensory desires »- Asger Jorn

 « The Good Wild », 1969 – Asger Jorn (1914-1973)

Photo author: Frans Vandewalle .Source: flickr.com

Artists advocate spontaneity in art. Cobra is characterized by an effervescence of creative activity, an interest in primitive arts (Viking art, Oriental calligraphy, Expressionism, prehistoric art, medieval art), naive and popular, thus joining the dynamics of the art brut

« Nude wounded », 1959 – exhibition Karel Appel, Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris