Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Honeymoon & Hotels series’ Category

Jul 27

Sicily Inspires: Baroque Suite at the Palazzo Trigona

I cannot agree with those who say it is unimportant where you stay on holiday. “It’s only where you sleep” they proclaim, while bedding down into a threadbare hostel with more cockroaches than fellow guests. For me, the accommodation acts as a kind of spinal cord of a holiday from which all other experiences branch off; it is the place where the real rest takes place, those moments of marvellous contemplation, and where you can truly feel at home in a strange city. So for me where you stay on holiday is very important, all the more so because these places so often inspire me to paint.

Having started making gouache illustrations of hotels and hotel rooms back on my 2015 honeymoon, I have carried on the tradition in places such as Granada, Rome and Marrakech. And Noto in southern Italy was never going to be an exception, especially when we saw the splendour of the suite in which we found ourselves at the Palazzo Trigona Suites, just next to Noto’s iconic cathedral.

Noto is a city awash with baroque detail and architectural grandeur, and so it felt appropriate that we would be housed in a room which exhibited wonderful high ceilings, a stately black and white chequerboard floor, and all number of design flourishes befitting the period. Such was the grandiosity of the room that we took to playing baroque classical music whenever we were in situ, and against that erudite background I sat down to create this gouache painting.

Noto Suite FINAL

Baroque Suite at the Palazzo Trigona (gouache on paper, ©2017, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

Featuring the understated tones of grey and gold which made up the room’s design, as well as that wonderful floor and accompanying furniture, the highlight of the painting is the room’s view, looking onto the Chiesa Madre di San Nicolò Cathedral, the side profile of which dominates the piece. It’s a work which feels very different from my illustrations which have gone before it, which seems about right. After all, there’s no place quite so magnificently, baroquely, like Noto.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com 

Jul 12

1 Comment

Sicily Inspires: Cubist landscape at Mazzarò Bay

When I am in the Mediterranean, when I even think about it from afar, artistic inspiration stirs inside me like a typhoon whipped up by a storm. The smells, colours, sights and sensation of the Mediterranean combine to create a heady mix of cerulean-tinted sea-perfumed reflections which move me to make art. And while some of the results may be small little landscapes like this one, painted on an A4 pad of white paper with a box of travel gouaches, they capture with them a small piece of the experience.

This landscape, with its mix of simplified cubist forms and unfussy geographical outlines, falls broadly within my series of hotel-room captures, but also resembles the early interpretative landscapes I first conceived while on holiday on the Amalfi Coast. Showing the beautiful bay of Mazzarò which sits just below the hill-top gem of Taormina, this was the ravishing view which we got to enjoy daily from our rented apartment just above the beach front. While the flat was not a front line seaside property, it benefitted from the most stunning prospect – even the surrounding houses appeared to frame the view in a way which made the seascape all the more precious.

Taormina View FINAL

Cubist Landscape at Mazzarò Bay (©2017 Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

This was a work I started as soon as we arrived on Mazzarò Bay and which was quickly finished in situ. After all, seduced as we were by the house and by its location, we spent a good many hours either reflecting upon the sea or holed up in the luscious back garden. Happily we had 4 days to enjoy those magical surroundings. It was a time we wished could have continued for far longer.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com