Gong
Pierre Alechinsky was born in Brussels, where he received training in book illustration and typography at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs. He would go on to work in a range of media, from painting and prints to poetry and film. He was an original member of COBRA, an international group of Danish, Dutch, and Belgian artists active from 1948 through 1952. In camaraderie with other artists, including Karel Appel and Asger Jorn, Alechinsky held high expectations for a new postwar society and a new school of art. The members of COBRA believed in creative diversity; however, they shared interests in experimental methods, vivid color and free line, mythology, and children's art. In the mid-1950s, Alechinsky studied the art of calligraphy in Japan, adopting some of its techniques for his own work, as well as the materials of brush and ink on paper. In his paintings and prints, he developed a personal yet accessible pictorial vocabulary of forms suggesting animals and birds, volcanoes and waterfalls, plant life and human bodies. Gong is one such work, populated by biomorphic forms that flow into one another. It is drafted with gestural lines of ink and swaths of color using a monochromatic palette of various blues.
The title of this work alludes to the sense of sound, exemplified by an instrument commonly used in East Asian music, in keeping with the painting's calligraphic technique. Alechinsky's figurative abstraction, still in the spirit of COBRA, indicates his fascination with primitive imagery and bold color that appeal directly to the viewer's experience and emotion.
The title of this work alludes to the sense of sound, exemplified by an instrument commonly used in East Asian music, in keeping with the painting's calligraphic technique. Alechinsky's figurative abstraction, still in the spirit of COBRA, indicates his fascination with primitive imagery and bold color that appeal directly to the viewer's experience and emotion.
Artwork Details
- Title: Gong
- Artist: Pierre Alechinsky (Belgian, born Brussels, 1927)
- Date: 1967
- Medium: Acrylic on paper mounted on paper
- Dimensions: 46 1/2 x 59 1/2 in. (118.1 x 151.1 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Gift of Marlene and Jerome Brody, 1977
- Object Number: 1977.470
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Multiple artists/makers
1967
Multiple artists/makers
1963
Multiple artists/makers
1968 (from a plate executed in 1953)
Pierre Alechinsky
ca. 1961
Pierre Alechinsky
1964
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.