SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E3
artBY SEBASTIAN SMEEIknow almost nothing about
Corneille de Lyon. I don’t
have any books on him. I’ve
never seen an exhibition
devoted to him. But in mu-
seums across America and
E urope, I find myself hovering,
like a hummingbird poised to
strike, in front of tiny portraits
with green or blue backgrounds.
And I frequently find, when I
peer at the wall label, that they
have been attributed to Corneille
de Lyon.
None of them is signed.
A lthough the paintings them-
selves are often no bigger than
postcards, they are usually in
elaborate, aedicular frames
(niches covered by a pediment
supported by a pair of stone
columns). They are not all equal-
ly riveting. But most are a notch
or two above everything around
them.
What makes them so good is
not easy to explain. It’s not just
the extraordinary level of concen-
trated detail. They possess some-
thing else — something intangi-
ble, a hypnotic quotient of oddity.
It might be a slight asymmetry
in the subject’s eyes. It might be
the bravura rendering of a fancy
plumed hat or a fabulous red
mustache. Or it might b e a partic-
ularly unforgiving stare, the kind
I associate either with Ingres’smost incendiary 19th-century
portraits or the murderous looks
my wife gives me when I’ve
shrunk her new blouse in the
dryer.
It all speaks to the artist’s
refusal to idealize, to smooth o ver
particulars for the sake of the
sitter’s vanity. Corneille de Lyon
painted portraits a nd, as far as we
know, nothing else. This one, in
To ledo, is the one I saw most
recently. But I have seen others in
Washington, London, New York,
Chicago, Paris (the Louvre has
12), Vienna, Houston, Boston and
the Berkshires.
But take that with a pinch of
salt. In t ruth, o nly one painting —
a portrait of a man named Pierre
Aymeric in the Louvre — can be
securely attributed to the hand of
Corneille de Lyon. With all the
rest, it’s educated guesswork.
That’s because he never signed
his works and the historical rec-
ord is unusually thin. He was
born in The Hague in the first
decade of the 16th century. (We
don’t know the date.) In 1533 or
1534, he settled in Lyon, one of
several Flemish painters active in
the French city. A decade later, he
was established as painter to the
Dauphin (later King Henry II). In
154 7, he became a naturalized
French citizen by royal decree,
and he died in Lyon in 1575.
Corneille always painted on a
small scale. He employed multi-ple assistants. His subjects were
usually men and women in court
circles, merchants and officials.
The gold chain around the
neck of this sitter, Maréchal Bon-
nivet, conveys wealth and status.
Bonnivet’s large ear still seems to
tingle with the sensation of hav-
ing been pitilessly scrutinized,
while the color and texture of his
curly beard and thin mustache
are captured with a miniaturist’s
mind-bending wizardry.
Perhaps most arresting is the
way Corneille’s emerald back-
ground chimes with the subject’s
green eyes. Those eyes do not
meet the viewer’s. But along with
the tautly drawn mouth, they
communicate an unmistakable
intensity and resolve. All by itself
the tiny bit of shading under the
outside corner of his left eye
conveys an impression of the
muscles keeping the orb alert,
missing nothing.
It’s this that catapults Cor-
neille’s portraits five centuries
into the present. Their immedia-
cy is such that it diminishes our
interest in the artist, the sitter,
dates, patronage, costume and
class — all those details that so
exercise art historians. Instead of
being buried under documents,
befogged by facts, you find your-
self in the immediate, proximate,
breathing presence of another
human being — and there’s sud-
denly no room for anything else.GREAT WORKS, IN FOCUSHis name may beobscure, but hiswork is ubiquitousTOLEDO MUSEUM OF ARTCorneille de Lyon (b. ca. 1500)Maréchal Bonnivet, mid-16th centuryAt the Toledo Museum of Art.A series featuring art critic Sebastian Smee’s favorite works
in permanent collections across the United States