Goodbye CoBrA

[franceslievens]

A 20th century art movement I've got a lot of affinity with is CoBrA. Why that is, I can't really tell. Part of it is chauvinism: The Br in the acronym stands for Brussels. It could also be because of the interest of these painters in child's drawings and the works of mental patients. My creativity with crayons and paint has never gotten past the child's drawings and the inherent naïveté of them. I seem to enjoy the bright colours, the ease of painting, but I understand how much thought you can actually put into it. Or it could be the influence of De Vijftigers, a group of writers and poets with strong ties to CoBrA. Maybe their poems were my first guidelines in appreciating the sensuality of my own language. Dutch doesn't have to sound harsh.

Karel Appel died today. I don't dare to say he was the last living member of CoBrA. At least he was the most famous of them all. An amiable figure who I'll recall from an tv-interview a couple of years ago in which he wondered aloud if he shouldn't paint over that old painting of his, worth millions now, and asked the interviewing lady to shed her clothes so he could paint her there and then.
He's one more living legend to have his date of dieing added to his birthdate in Wikipedia.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

My radio station mentioned his death - I had never heard of him before, so I was quite surprised that he made WDR2.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

He was quite famous. But maybe more well-known over here because of the link to Belgium. He was Dutch btw.