Although Corneille moved to Paris in 1950, he continued to travel to escape city life, and trekked through Africa, South America, Japan and the Tropics, where he drew inspiration for his work. In his earlier oeuvre Corneille had been extremely concerned with line, partly due to the influence of Paul Klee; and he produced a large body of map-like works in which the focus on line is particularly apparent. During the CoBrA years he learned to be spontaneous and like the Expressionists to return to primitivistic forms of creativity. In this regard the visits to South America and Africa were crucial.
The rhythmic pattern of lines we see emerging in compositions such as "Terre de L'Eté" present us with a view not unlike what we might see from an airplane or through a microscope. This work can be compared to "Among the Trees", dated 1961, in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam; or "The Burnt Earth, the Great Earth" in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. These broad, abstract canvases, constructed from organic shapes, appear quite spontaneous and yet have been put together in a firm, tectonic structure.
Christian Dotrement descibed Corneille's canvases as "Inspirational topography, not because of a fixity, but because of simple and complex movement, as if repeated but always different, curved lines and straight lines, spirals and radiations, perfections and cracks.. Paintings (like) a single unfolded surface from which to fly away. To return. To return, but each time to become anew." (Le Géologie Ailé, Ex. Cat., Corneille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charlerois 1974)