Lucien Joseph Coront Ducluzeau, Known As Joseph Coront (1859–1934), Symbolist Portrait, Circa 1900

Lucien Joseph Coront Ducluzeau, known as Joseph Coront (1859–1934)
Symbolist portrait, circa 1900
Oil on canvas
40.5 x 32.5 cm
49 x 41 cm with frame
Signed “Coront” lower right

Born in Vanosc, in the hamlet of Cluzeau, where his family had lived for centuries, Joseph Coront Ducluzeau joined Jean-Baptiste Danguin’s painting studio at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 1879. After winning the École Lyonnaise’s Grand Competition in 1882, he moved to Paris to study under Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts. A regular visitor to the Cluny Museum and the Louvre, the young artist developed a particular fondness for medieval tapestries and 18th-century masters such as Largillierre, Boucher, Nattier, and Watteau. Although he established his studio in the capital, he remained deeply attached to his native region and regularly returned to Vanosc, where he carried out the interior decoration of the Château de la Rivoire. In addition to the Lyon-based artists François Guiguet and Louis Eymonnet, Coront befriended Alexandre Séon in Paris and was introduced by his friend, the art critic Alphonse Germain, to the Symbolist poet Jean Moréas, whose verses he illustrated in the magazine L’hémicycle in February 1901. At the turn of the century, the painter showcased his talents as a decorator, landscape artist, and portraitist on the walls of the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, where he was noticed and collected by art historians Charles Saunier and Émile Mâle.
Both in terms of its subject matter and technical execution, our portraitclearly illustrates what made Joseph Coront so successful. It depicts an elegant young woman in a three-quarter profile, seated at the edge of a window with a balustrade, its curtain parted to reveal the sea, with the silhouette of a lighthouse visible in the distance. Turning her gaze away from the horizon, the model appears pensive, as if lost in thought. While the setting is rendered in a fairly simplified manner, Coront focuses on capturing the effects of late-afternoon light on the young woman’s face, in a finely modeled chiaroscuro. The subtle brushwork barely conceals the preparatory charcoal lines, still visible, which seem to compartmentalize the figure. In the background, the landscape painter reasserts himself by favoring a style that is strangely more Divisionist. To capture the gentle ripples of the water, as well as the reflections of a faintly pink sky dotted with small orange touches, the artist fragments the blue-green of the sea through the methodical application of bright orange strokes. All these visual elements lend this portrait an almost decorative quality. It also takes on a Symbolist quality through the model’s enigmatic expression, which suggests he is lost in the meanderings of his inner life, confirming the praise offered by Alphonse Germain in 1897:“A keen observer of individual character, Mr. Coront excels at capturing a person’s features, and among the already numerous portraits bearing his signature, one might not find a single one that is not a soul[1]. ”



[1] Germain, Alphonse, “Joseph Coront,” L’Ermitage, 1^er July 1897, p. 151.