Art-in-Amalfi – Painting 6: Arrival in Amalfi

On the Amalfi Coast you really are spoilt for choice. Not only is the coast a veritable paradise of high end shops, hotels and restaurants, but from every angle there is a new and stunning view to pop your eyes pen a little wider with pleasure. As both an Artist and keen photographer, this was both a treat and a burden, for every time I opened my eyes, I saw something incredibly beautiful, and started feeling guilty if I did not capture it in some form. So it was that on a short 45 minute boat ride from Positano to Amalfi I found myself unable to sit still, unsure whether to look backwards out of the boat towards the fading but ever beautiful view of the pastel-coloured town on the magnificent mountainside, look over the side to the similarly nestled hilltop town of Praiano, or forwards, towards the glittering town of Amalfi.

Well the answer to this quandary was that I did all three. Having had my fill of Positano (if that is even possible…) I then turned towards white-gleaming Praiano (and later painted it as Amalfi Coast painting no.5) and then turned my attention towards the grand town of Amalfi which our boat was fast approaching. This painting, my 6th of the holiday and another in the series of cubic simplifications by which I am delineating the houses and structures of the coast, captures the moment when we approached the town, when the gleaming gold facade of the cathedral could be seen flanked my buildings sweeping up the steadily sloping valley on either side. Meanwhile in the background one could just about make out the promised land of Ravello, a town we were to visit later that day.

Amalfi (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

More about that, tomorrow.

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