Heads in a Colourful Landscape 1965

Karel Appel's lithograph, "Heads in a Colourful Landscape" is a jumble of vibrant color and energetic marks. You can see a bright, bold palette of reds, blues, greens, and yellows with these scratchy, nervous black lines dancing all over the surface. I can just imagine Appel in his studio, maybe with some music on, attacking the plate with real gusto! It's like he's carving out these primal, cartoonish heads that are barely contained by their outlines. I'm thinking about the thick, juicy quality of that black ink. It's not precious or careful. I'm wondering if those sweeping curves are about feeling, or about something he saw, or just an excuse to move the ink around. "Heads in a Colourful Landscape" feels connected to the work of other CoBrA artists, like Asger Jorn and Constant Nieuwenhuys, who were also playing with childlike imagery and spontaneous gestures. All these artists keep the conversation around painting alive, echoing and responding to each other across time.