ArtistsNetwork.com 47Meet the Artist
Parisian artist Jean-Claude Lizerand is a member of
the French Watercolour Society, whose membership
in the European Confederation of Watercolour Societies
enabled him to exhibit further afield and exchange
with painters from each participating country.
and technological achievements, I began at the same
time to detest its violence, greed and hostility to its
fellow man. I denounced the drift of our current society
and, with those closest to me, sought solutions more
decent and more generous.
Beyond my social and professional existence,
I dreamed, drew and painted. In my own way, I, too,
was creating beauty. Now, all these years later, I main-
tain the same sense of wonder and pleasure to be found
in all forms of beauty—a pretty face, a child’s smile,
a sunrise, a bunch of fl owers, a cat, a sailing boat—but
also in reading, music, watercolor, friendship or a cul-
ture diff erent than mine. Th is sensitivity to harmony
is doubtless the motivation that has led me to draw
and paint to the present day.
That’s a very Keatsian sentiment: “Beauty is truth,
truth beauty.” Do you still feel the same?
Nowadays, I feel the advance of age, and I fi nd it more
diffi cult to start a new piece. I’m sometimes happy just
to take a photograph, but if the desire to pick up a
brush comes, I honor it, although I don’t attempt to
do too much or spread myself too thin. I might let
myself take a spontaneous direction that leads to
abstraction, or I might want to stick to realism and
focus on the complexity, duality and ambiguity of
refl ections—whether they’re those of a fountain,
a hollow in the rocks or a refl ective facade.
I still fi nd immense pleasure in the act of looking,
of understanding, of trying to make sense of some-
thing, of depicting beauty. WA
Niall O’Neill (pastelprogress.blogspot.com) is a pastel
artist and freelance writer. His artwork is represented
by the Lavit Gallery, in Cork, Ireland.