Corneille

GUILLAUME CORNELIS “CORNEILLE” VAN BEVERLOO (Belgium, 1922 – France, 2010).
“Vertige de l’oeil III,” 1980.
Mixed media on paper mounted on canvas.
Signed and dated in the upper margin.
Measurements: 72 x 47 cm; 77.5 x 52.5 cm (frame).

The significance of Corneille’s imagery lies in his contribution to the renewal of European art after World War II. His approach is based on an instinctive, almost childlike language, influenced by children’s drawings and primitive art, in clear opposition to the excessive intellectualization that dominated his era. In this way, his work helped to re-emphasize spontaneity as an essential element of modern art. Furthermore, his compositions feature recurring motifs such as birds, female figures, and symbolic forms, inspired by his travels and his exposure to non-Western cultures, thus anticipating the contemporary interest in global and intercultural themes.

Better known by his pseudonym Corneille, Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo was a Belgian painter and printmaker of Dutch descent. He began studying art in 1940 in Amsterdam, where he met painters such as Constant and Karel Appel. Intrigued by the work of Pignon, Matisse, and Picasso, he began exhibiting in 1946. He visited Hungary shortly thereafter and discovered Surrealism there, drawing inspiration from the paintings of Klee and Miró. Along with Appel, Constant, and others, Corneille was a member of the Dutch “Experimentale Group,” contributed to the magazine “Reflex,” and was part of the CoBrA movement (1948–1951). After the dissolution of the CoBrA movement, he moved to Paris. Two years later, in 1953, he began creating etchings, and the following year, ceramic works. The influence of his collection of African art, acquired during a trip to North Africa in 1949, is evident in the evolution of his work from the late 1950s onward, as he gradually moved away from abstract landscape painting to develop an imaginative style featuring bird’s-eye-view landscapes, exotic animals, and highly stylized figures. Corneille’s work is currently represented at MoMA in New York, the Slovak National Gallery, the Dordrecht Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other institutions.