Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café – Part I

It came to me one sunny afternoon, when I was painting my last Norm work, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. My mind should have been on the painting, but as is often the case when painting the minutiae of a large detailed canvas, my mind was elsewhere, in Spain’s jet-set Marbella in fact, on a hazy summer’s day, sitting in the green and bounteous garden of the Cappuccino Grand Café, with the sea calmly lapping the sandy shore, and all the worries of the world wafting away in the sweet-smelling mediterranean air. Such is the effect of the Grupo Cappuccino’s free radio station, whose chilled jazz and nostalgic bossa-nova  transports one back to the Cappuccino experience so thoroughly enjoyed in the summer past, even when all around you southern England, land of the current “drought” is on high flood alert.

The real Marbella Cappuccino

So there I was thinking about Cappuccino, and I knew that following a recent trip there, I just had to recreate the café on canvas, so that, as well as listening to its soundtrack, I could also hang a large image of my favourite Spanish café in my home here in London. Trouble was, I already had a canvas reserved for another Norm parody based on a second masterpiece of impressionist favourite Eduoard Manet, A Bar at the Folies–Bergère. 

Cappuccino’s gardens by the sea

That’s when it occurred to me – I want to paint Manet, and I want to paint Cappuccino – why not combine the two? And so the idea was born. I set about creating this partner to my Norm version of Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe with Manet’s renowned Bar at the Folies–Bergère installed right where Cappuccino’s own bar stands. And that was just the start. Having decided to paint one Manet masterpiece within the scene, it seemed consistent to bring several other Manet characters to life when I painted the customers of my café. So, in these gardens, you have an ultra chic, wonderfully contemporary Cappuccino Grand Café together with resident DJ Pepe Link, and a dashing Norm waiter while, conversely, the customers comprise a load of Norms in 1860s period dress. It’s a combination which I love and I am so proud of the result.

Without further ado, I give to you my latest Norm creation, Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café.

Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, Oil on canvas)

On tomorrow’s post I’ll guide you through all the Norms featured in Cappuccino’s lush tropical garden, and all the paintings by father of the Impressionists, Edouard Manet, which inspired them. In the meantime I leave you with a gallery of some details from this new Normic landscape. À tout à l’heure.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Related articles

• Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe Part II – A Norm Re-imagining (normsonline.wordpress.com)
• Persistently mysterious; indubitable genius: Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (normsonline.wordpress.com)
• Cappuccino: No longer just froth and espresso (normsonline.wordpress.com)