The form research of Cobra group

• Main Authors: Hui-Hsiu Kuo, 郭惠修
• Other Authors: Dr.I-Chung Hsiung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/55945466199714114981

碩士 === 華梵大學 === 工業設計系碩士班 === 93 === All European cities suffered a lot from the world warⅡand the rampant Naziism. The damaging wars, the broken environments, and the injuries to human nature, all left deep scars in the hearts of young artists. A group of young artists from Denmark, Belgium, and Netherlands organized a very active painting school in order to get rid of the postwar shadows. In the chaotic times, busy with checking the damages caused by the war and the postwar restoration work, people had no time to consider art. Nevertheless, an artist body was formed by a group of young artists. On November 8, 1948, a café near the Notre-Dame Hotel was full of poets, painters from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, who sketched out a proclamation of “La Cause Etait Entendue”. The artistic movement body, which was characterized by its “revolutionary surrealism”, was intentionally or unintentionally competing with the Paris Painting School. Its name is the acronym of the three countries of Denmark, Belgium and Netherlands, with Co representing Copenhagen, Br representing Brussels and A representing Amsterdam. Thus “Cobra” became the formal name of this body. This group of young artists sought after a brand new artistic expression, put forward themes which were never researched before, and used unusual materials to display their thoughts. For the sake of the originality of art and spontaneous artistic presentation, they looked for inspirations in the lunatic patients, primitive art, and children’s works. They had special artistic enthusiasm and adventurism of a “Cobra”. When this artistic body was founded, it did not arouse much attention and win any fame, especially in America. This was perhaps because their works were similar in the form to the “Non-image Painting” prevailing in Paris and New York. And some people even thought they were too shallow. As a matter of fact, their paintings, no matter in intuition or in originality, had the qualities of being unique and various, and had a strength shown by the painting strokes. The movement of “Cobra” was dedicated to reviewing the primitive civilization of human beings, finding out the value of life and presenting the most authentic aspects of art. This romantic longing originated from the concepts of “Retrospect” and “Lost Paradise” and reflected upon each other with the theory of “Return to Nature” proposed by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) in the mid 18th century. In the mid 19th century, it presented itself in a different form. Some “Cobra” artists stressing theories hoped to explain art on the sober and conscious level of human kind. This method was not adopted in the traditional western world. In the respect of psychology, the painting mode of children in the “pre-logic” period was similar to the presentation methods of primitive cultures and the lunatic patients. Any object has certain symbolization which gives people an urge to paint. When the artists of “Cobra" were depicting human beings, they added the image of objects, or combined them with animals and plants. The common feature of “Cobra” artists was that they were wild about the primitive cultures of human beings. All things rooted in the primitive cultures inspired their creation. In theory, they put theory into practice, and provided momentum to this movement. Their view of the society was based on Marxism with hope to inject thoughts into art and to popularize art. According to Marxism, the precondition of the popularization of art is that people should have their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter satisfied. Before “Cobra”, surrealism had already combined Marxism with artistic creation. Anyhow, in comparison, surrealism is more inclined to be influenced by the theory of Freud, deeming that human beings should integrate consciousness and sub-consciousness into one. The Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung（1875-1961） discovered a layer that Freud had not reached, i.e., the layer of collective sub-consciousness which is deeper than individual sub-consciousness. The invented images of primitive people, children and lunatic patients on this layer are common. Different from Freud, C. G. Jung thinks that libido, the impetus of human behavior, is life energy instead of sex in its narrow sense. The artists of “Cobra” developed their own painting movement from primitive and popular art. They were dedicated to integrating abstract art and surrealism, and were absorbed in the imagination of shapes. But they refused the instructions of psychological analysis, and paid too much attention to the process itself rather than the image. Therefore, the production of their works was not conceived beforehand, but almost spontaneous. The common features of “Cobra” painters with great impact were bright and striking colors, fragrant pigment, free and variable visual symbols, and images with substantial meanings. In their paintings, there were always naïve features of children, cartoon-like transfigurations of animals, and monsters without names. The artists of “Cobra” stressed on the origins of primitive painting and popular culture. They had great curiosity towards intellectuality, opposed the formalistic paintings, and got their inspirations from anywhere. They regarded those artistic forms which had not been attained by western principles and conventions as their concepts of creation. For example, the totem and magic symbols of primitive tribes, oriental calligraphy, prehistoric and mediaeval arts, and etc. They definitely found some parts which were not polluted by western art, such as: popular folk art form, pure and simple creations, works of children, lunatic patients, and etc. In addition, they thought a person's handwriting could show his spirit. Actually, these artists intentionally retreated to a visionary world which was primitive and hidden under the many layers of human sub-consciousness. The Cobra artistic movement started from November, 1948 and drew to an end in November, 1951. The artists of “Cobra”, in this short period of three years, sought common ideals and presented an artistic genre typical of Cobra. It can be said that it was the last advance guard movement in large scale in the 20th century.