The Daily Norm

Nov 29

Paris Part II: The Stein Collection, Munch (and the Screaming Norm) and the unyielding stench of Camembert

My feet still cry out in protest at the mere recollection of how much we were on our feet yesterday. But what a cultural extravaganza our eyes were able to feast upon as we went from one blockbuster exhibition to another.

First stop was the Grand Palais, at which we arrived slightly giddy having indulged in a mid morning mulled wine from the festive christmas market along the Champs Élysées. The Grand Palais is always the host of superb temporary exhibitions, having held Courbet, Renoir and Monet spectaculars in the last few years. This year’s offering is Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso…The Stein Family’s Adventure in Art which explores the stalwart patronage of the well known Stein family of superstar early 20th century artists at the shaky commencement of their careers, and exhibits the vast collection of important works which they amassed as a result (see my gallery below for a preview of some of the works in the exhibition).

The exhibition was split roughly into three sections, each following the acquisitions of the three respective Stein siblings, Leo, Michael (and his wife Sarah) and Gertrude. Michael and Sarah’s almost exclusive obsession with Matisse makes for a very comprehensive show of the latter’s earlier work, when, as undisputed head of the Fauvists, his paintings command attention with their multiple bright colours and coarse brush work. Leo Stein, the more conservative collector, whose at first collected with sister Gertrude, took more to Picasso, but stopped collecting his work shortly after the blue period, finding Picasso’s progression into cubism all too much. It was Gertrude Stein who took the collection further, resolutely supporting Picasso at every twist and turn of his experimental career before his prices spiralled beyond her reach. Then her patronage embraced the likes of Juan Gris and Picaba, right up to artists working in abstract which she began to collect before her death in the 40s. Ever the pioneer, Gertrude’s collection is substantial and multifaceted and makes for a fascinating overview of the post-impressionist period when art was changing rapidly. However my favourite section was Leo Stein’s Picassos from the blue period (see the gallery below). The melancholy figures and muted colours on these canvases are loaded with a depth of emotion and sophistication of draftsmanship which is lacking in the more superficial and, dare I say it, commercial compositions in his later work. Although of Picasso’s adventures into cubism, there are some superb examples, particularly in the preparations he makes for Les Damoiselles d’Avignon. Also worth seeing are the works of Juan Gris who, taking the torch from Picasso, explores the cubism genre in his brilliantly composed geometric fragmentation of everyday life.

Nov 28

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Paris Part I: Dali, Moreau and the problem of getting a good macaroon.

It’s Paris season at The Daily Norm, and here in the City of Lights, Paris pulsates with the buzz of pre-Christmas anticipation, millions packing the shops and the metro, the streets starting to sparkle with fairy lights, and a chill in the air coupled with the occasional waft of log fires from the Marais chimneys indicating that Christmas is close at hand.

But the city is not just readying itself for seasonal festivities. Tourists continue to pack and cram into every irresistible cultural corner, cameras flashing, and queues forming. Yes, those queues have been the bane of my Paris visit so far, curling tirelessly out of every museum, on the metro platforms, out of restaurants, and even to get into some shops! Our primary intention, as we set off yesterday morning, was to visit the Musée d’Orsay, my partner having never seen it before, and myself intrigued by the rehang on an allegedly revolutionary scheme of coloured walls which are meant to enable the impressionist paintings to glow more against their new backgrounds. However as we approached, it was possible to see, even from the Tulleries across the river, the masses queuing before the entrance, these queues snaking way beyond the old railway building and almost onto the nearby bridge.

Nov 27

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Sunday Supplement: Le Paris Formidable

Ahhh as this blog goes to print, I am breathing the air of Paris, the most beautiful city in the world. Paris has no substitute for me. It is the ultimate jewel in the crown of global cultural offerings, every corner of the city exudes architectural magnificence, the Haussmann boulevards are so perfectly laid out that down each road your eyes feast upon one stunning postcard view after another, as the Tour Eiffel, the Arc de Triomphe, the river, the Opera Garnier all come into view. On the streets, the air is crisp and wintery but across the breeze the scent of a magnificent city in perpetual motion fills even the most unwitting visitor with a sense of anticipation. Even the antiquated metro has its own scent of the art nouveau. I adore Paris, from the inherently atmospheric tip of the Butte in Montmartre, to the boutique lined cobbled streets of the Marais. It is a constant inspiration, and I need to visit at least once a year to have my ultimate fill of this stunning city.

Le Paris Formidable (2000, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

So it’s only suitable then that in this week’s Sunday Supplement, I focus upon the painting which started it all for me when I was 16 – Le Paris Formidable.

Nov 25

Limited edition prints for sale on Etsy

It’s bumper Friday with a second post just to let you know that in addition to my Norm Christmas cards, I’ve put five sets of limited edition prints for sale in my Etsy Shop. This is a great opportunity to buy some art in time for Christmas. Take a look! The prints which are for sale are shown below.

: Orange Square (2002 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

: Duende (Acrylic on canvas, 2005)

: Joie de Vivre (Zest of Life) 3: Casino Nights (2005, acrylic on canvas)

: Joie de Vivre (Zest of Life) 2: Afternoon Sea (2005, acrylic on canvas)

: Joie de Vivre (Zest of Life) 1: Crab Cocktail (2005, acrylic on canvas)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2011. 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.

Nov 25

Christmas comes to the Daily Norm! Snowman Norm, Santa Norm, and Christmas cards for sale!!

Christmas has come early to the Daily Norm with the introduction of yet two more next generation Norm paintings! Getting into the Christmas spirit (and I usually get into the Christmas spirit in around October, once I’ve given up on the summer and started indulging in the decoration displays in the London department stores) I have painted two new Norms especially for Christmas… Santa Norm and Snowman Norm. And not only have I painted these new Norms for your viewing pleasure, but I have also turned them into Christmas cards available for purchase on Etsy!

So, visit my Etsy shop to make a purchase of what must be some of the most original Christmas cards on the market! I am selling the cards in packets of 10 cards, each containing the two designs – 5 Snowmen, 5 Santas, with 10 white envelopes to match. And the price of £4.99 is not much to ask for these semi-gloss super quality cards printed onto a sizeable A5 to thoroughly impress every recipient! Buy quickly though… December is fast approaching and stocks are limited… and I’ve already started selling since putting them online last night!

In the meantime I leave you with the Norms themselves. Merry Christmas from the Norms!!

Snowman Norm (2011, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

Santa Norm (2011, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

Nov 24

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Norms do… Velázquez

For the final instalment of The Daily Norm’s Spanish Season, I present the second of my Norm paintings completed while in Spain… Infanta Norm! Infanta Norm is painted in the style of the Spanish Artist supremo, Diego Velázquez. Velázquez’s masterpiece, Las Meninas, is one of Spain’s most famous classical paintings, and is without a doubt the star of the show in Madrid’s Prado Gallery. The paintings is a scene depicting a day in the life of the court of King Felipe IV of Spain. As the Spanish Court’s principal artist, Velázquez painted a number of portraits of the royal family. Amongst them are various portraits of the King’s children or “Infantas”, the likes of which form the inspiration for my own “Infanta Norm”. These paintings, along with Las Meninas, have become iconic of Spain’s golden age, and the royal princesses, with their wide dresses and equally wide hair, all adorned with gleaming jewels and rich fabrics, have become staples of Spain’s tourist iconography. Hence every souvenir shop in Spain now sells reproductions of the familiar wide-dressed princesses. I in fact have a relatively less tacky red ceramic reproduction in my London lounge!

Infanta Norm (After Velázquez) (2011, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

In the gallery below I enclose a few images of the collective paintings which inspired my Infanta Norm. The painting’s composition is almost entirely based upon Velázquez’s Infanta Don Margarita (1660) with its voluptuous silk curtain hangings framing the figure of the young princess. However, for her hair and some of the dress detailing, I have also taken details from two other Velázquez portraits of Princess Margarita and her sister, Maria Teresa.

: Infanta Norm (detail) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Velásquez, Infanta Don Margarita de Austria

: Velásquez, Infanta Maria Teresa

: Velásquez, Infanta Don Margarita de Austria

Nov 23

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New Norm Exclusive: Flamenco Norm

Image via Wikipedia

From the first Norm I painted to the newest… during the last two days of the Daily Norm’s Spanish season, I will be presenting the two new Norm paintings which I have been working on while in Spain. This is something of an exclusive for the Daily Norm, and for me, as this is the first time I am presenting my “next generation Norms” to the public. Unlike the limited collection of original Norm canvases, the next generation Norms are slightly more sophisticated, benefitting no doubt from several years of interim painterly experience, although maintaining the same air of lighthearted joie de vivre as the original collection.

The first next generation Norm is Flamenco Norm. Flamenco Norm is something of a star. She exudes the energetic, impassioned movement of the flamenco, the multiple folds and frills of her polka-dot skirt swirling through the air as her body pulses with the intense and powerful rhythm provided by the guitar player behind her. Her arm is thrust upwards as the energy and spirit of the dance reaches the tips of her twisting fingers, while in her face, her eyes close in the intensity of the moment of duende, when all the raw, almost orgasmic emotions of the dance culminate in a moment of pure, uninhibited passion. Around her, the setting is an old flamenco club like those found in the smallest little villages of Andalucía, where the priority is not in the outmoded decor of the yesteryears, but in the moment of the dance. Hence the walls are starting to bulge and crack, the posters on the wall advertise past flamenco stars, alcoholic beverages and other flamenco paraphernalia, a single bulb hangs from the ceiling lighting only the star of the show, and the wooden floor is battered down by generations of dancing spectacles upon its resonant boards.

Flamenco Norm (2011, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

This is not the first time I have been inspired to paint the flamenco. Below is my 2004 painting Duende, painted to a degree in the style of Picasso, the dancer’s face betraying dual emotions as she both fights and indulges in the intensity of emotion rupturing at the moment of duende.

Duende (2004, acrylic on canvas) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2011. 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 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.

Nov 22

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Norm Profile: Norm in the Jungle

Continuing my introduction to the Norms which I painted in the past, and expanding further upon the (variably) tropical theme of my Spanish season, the next Norm stepping into the limelight is Norm in the Jungle. This was the first Norm I ever painted. I gave him as a gift to my grandmother who always adored him, and continues to enjoy him still.

I’m not sure why I chose the jungle as the backdrop to my first Norm. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of a jungle, as I have been to forests with their dark creepy corridors between trees, naturally sheltered by the canopy of vast tree tops and low hanging luscious flowers and furry palms. I think I can identify two sources of inspiration for this fascination. Firstly the stories of the Moomins written and illustrated by Tove Jansson which I was obsessed with as a child. Through her vivid descriptions and beautiful illustrations, she really conjured the idea of a magical midnight forest, full of little creatures hiding under the trees, each plant and crag and corner being imbued with a sense of mystery and adventure.

Image via Wikipedia

The second influence is the art of Henri Rousseau. I adore Rousseau. He’s a great inspiration to me, first and foremost because, like me, he was a self-taught artist, and that lack of teaching can really be seen in the wonderful naivety of his art, as it can be in the work of other self-taught masters such as Frida Kahlo and Van Gogh. Thus in his work there is none of the pretention of a taught artist, but a vivid, often childlike imagination illustrated through wonderful scenes of jungle animals and full and voluptuous vegetation. My favourite work is probably “Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)” which we are lucky enough to have hanging in London’s National Gallery free for all to see. All of his jungle works have the power to transpose their audience to the tropics… which is amazing since Rousseau never went to the tropics himself. He actually sought inspiration for his jungle scenes from the Jardin des Plantes in Paris!

Well, Norm in the Jungle was painted a long time ago (in 2005), and as I hope to show you later this week with the exclusive unveiling of four new Norm paintings, the Norms have come on a lot since. But my obsession with jungles and plants remains still. Here is a painting I did in the summer, also out here in Spain, called “Paseo Banus”. A pure celebration of the wonderful plants which grow habitually out here in Andalucía.

Paseo Banus (2011, Acrylic on canvas)

Nov 21

The rain in Spain… and other Spanish truisms

There is a common vernacular, made famous no doubt by the mellifluous tones of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. I beg to disagree. The rain in Spain in fact falls on the coast, over the mountains, outside in the garden and sometimes (because the houses here really aren’t built for the rain), inside. This past weekend,

Rain flowing down the roads in Marbella yesterday

staying on the Costa del “Sol” has been like living under a power shower as the skies bucketed down in a continuous barrage of water. The Spanish tourism industry claim that the Costa del Sol enjoys an average of 300 days of sunshine per year but I doubt that average reflects current trends. Every time I come out to Spain other than in July or August, it rains, torrentially. The houses, with cool interiors and flat roofs are built for the sun, and feel damp and miserable when it’s wet outside. The road drainage is similarly built to cope with occasional showers. Yesterday my mother and I were stranded in a café as rivers of rainwater gushed down the streets, turning the roads into rivers, leaving all those who had not thought to bring wellington boots on holiday (?!) unable to cross. There is a similarly common vernacular in Spain, that all the English flood into Spain to escape “rainy” England. The tables are surely turning, no doubt as global warming takes hold, and in 20 years don’t be surprised to find a barrage of Spanish owned second homes on Britain’s south coast, as the Spanish flee the newly named “Costa del Lluvia” in search of sun! Read more

Nov 20

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Sunday Supplement: ¡Guerra! The Spanish Civil War

While I gather it’s traditional for blogs to be published on workdays, here at the Daily Norm, we like to provide a complete weekly service. So every weekend I aim to provide the Daily Norm’s loyal readers with a Sunday supplement of a cultural kind (after all, if you’re like me, you’ll head straight to the culture section of the Sunday paper!). For the first few weeks, the Sunday Supplement with provide me with the opportunity to showcase some of my (non-Norm) artwork. While pictures of my paintings have been online in various forms for some time, the Sunday Supplement provides me with an opportunity to discuss the meaning behind the imagery.

This weekend, in conjunction with the Daily Norm’s current Spanish focus, I am showcasing the painting “¡Guerra! The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939” from my “España Volver” Collection. Meaning “return to Spain”, I painted the collection in 2009-2010, when a reinvigorated interest in Spain inspired several comprehensive works. It was a “return” because Spain has long been an influence in my work. But with the España Volver collection, my return to Spain as a subject was inspired more specifically by the nation’s social, political and historical landscape. It seems appropriate then to discuss one of my most political of Spanish paintings on this, the day that Spain goes to the polls in a general election.