Corneille - Silkscreen, Title, " Phantom of the Opera ".

Silkscreen by Corneille “Phantom of the Opera” , . The work is signed lower right, in pencil, by the artist. Edition 212/250

Corneille was at the cradle of free painting in Europe. In 1948 he also met Constant and together with others he founded the Dutch Experimental Group and later Cobra. Cobra was founded by the Belgians Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret, the Dane Asger Jorn and the Dutch Karel Appel, Constant and Corneille. The name Cobra refers to the international element of this art movement. The abbreviation stands for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the capitals of the countries where most Cobra artists came from.
In 1948 he settled in Paris. For Corneille, the Cobra period was mainly about experimentation. Art had to be naive and above all spontaneous. The academic and intellectual approach was rejected by the Cobra artists. They were mainly inspired by children's drawings, primitive folk art and 'outsider art', art made by mentally ill artists. This 'naive' art form is seen by art critics as a reaction to the horrors and arbitrariness of the Second World War.