Cornelius Guillaume van Beverloo, better known to the general public as Corneille, was a Belgian artist. Although Corneille was born in Liège, Belgium, he was a child of Dutch parents with Dutch nationality. Corneille is known as one of the most important members of the Cobra group (1948–1951), an avant-garde movement founded by Northern European artists that was strongly influenced by the naive, expressive art of children, folk art and primitive art .
Full name: Cornelis Guillaume van Beverloo
Born: July 3, 1922 in Liège, Belgium
Died: September 5, 2010 in Paris, France
Corneille was originally trained as a painter and studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liège. His first works were strongly influenced by surrealism, but he later developed towards a more abstract and expressive style, with strong colors and dynamic shapes.
Cobra Movement:
The Cobra group, of which Corneille was one of the founders, was named after the cities of Copenhagen (Copenhagen), Brussels and Amsterdam, where the artists came from. Well-known members of the Cobra group, besides Corneille, were artists such as Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, Pierre Alechinsky and Carl-Henning Pedersen and Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys. The group aimed to break through traditional art forms and develop a new, spontaneous and free way of painting. The members of Cobra were strongly influenced by the naive art of children and by the expression of the “unconscious” mind. The Cobra group did not only consist of painters, because writers such as Hugo Claus and Édouard Jaguer also joined the movement, as well as the Danish sculptor (painter) Sonja Ferlov. Corneille himself was a pioneer in the use of bright colors and shapes, often inspired by nature, animals and the human figure. His works exhibit a strong graphic simplicity and a certain playfulness. He was best known for his abstract paintings, collages and ceramics.
Characteristics of Corneille’s artworks:
- Bright colours: Corneille often used primary colors such as blue, yellow and red in his work, which was also typical of the Cobra style.
- Abstraction and figuration: His work often balanced between abstraction and figurative elements. He was fascinated by animals, nature and the human form. From the 1970s onwards his style has become very characteristic, often with a woman, cat and/or bird as a starting point.
- Expressiveness: In line with the Cobra philosophy, Corneille’s works were characterized by spontaneity and expression, often with hand-drawn lines and irregular shapes.