[1] The group included Hans Andreus, Lucebert, Simon Vinkenoog, Armando, Hugo Claus, and Jan Hanlo, among others.
They had previously become involved with a group of young Danish, Belgian and Dutch artists, who called themselves Cobra, Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam.
According to these Cobra artists-among them Karel Appel, Corneille and Constant – real vital art could only be made by truly free people.
Aesthetic conventions were things that hindered freedom and therefore art had to be able to arise directly from its original sources: spontaneity and immediacy were important.
Examples of immediate expression, unhindered by all sorts of aesthetic layers above it, they found especially in children's drawings and in African folk art.