Autumn | The Daily Norm

Oct 14

Deia’s Autumn Review

Beautiful, wonderful Deia…the little village which clings so serenely to the vertiginous slopes of Mallorca’s Tramuntana mountains, but which has inspired so many artists, poets and writers a thousand times over. And such is the staggering beauty of this mountainside marvel that the manifesto of every artist should include a visit to the village, at least once in every season. So when my Mother recently came to stay, it seemed a perfect opportunity to once again take the winding coastal road from Valldemossa to this famous home of creative greats, not only to re-encounter my adored Deia for the umpteenth time this year, but to see it in an altogether new light: an autumn light.

Deia in the autumn did not disappoint. Shrouded in the golden light of October, it took on a new ephemeral beauty magnified by the sprinkling of clouds which cast strong pillars of light sporadically over the mountainside. In the garden of Robert Graves’ house, a must-visit for my erudite mother, Spring blossom had given way to rich orange bourganvilla, plump oranges and a fresh harvest of home-grown vegetables.

Meanwhile, down on the spectacular Cala Deia, which we descended in order to enjoy a phenomenal squid lunch down by the foaming sea’s edge, the low autumn sun cast dramatic shadows over the naturally surreal rocky landscape. And while the sun descended quicker than it had on my first visit to the Cala some months before, there were no shortage of people enjoying the beach. In fact at one point it was so full, it looked more like Brighton on a rare sunny bank holiday.

No matter how many times I visit the magical village of Deia, I cannot help but be touched by the mystical atmosphere which envelopes the place. Whether it be in the mysterious mists of morning, the balmy summer nights punctuated by the chorus of cicadas, or now in the melancholic light of October, I remain firmly magnified by this little Elysium by the sea. And having now experienced its magic for herself, I can confidently add my mother to the multitude of admirers who fall in love with Deia afresh each season.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Oct 2

Marbella in shades of an Andalucian Autumn

It’s striking how quickly autumn has come upon us, even out here in Spain. Only a few weeks ago I posted my collection of photos with trees still clinging onto the last green leaves of the summer. A mere fortnight later, those leaves have fully caramelised and are starting to scatter to the ground. Last weekend, I took the short one hour trip from the heavenly shores of Mallorca to the equally beautiful seaside haven of Marbella to visit my parents, and to do a little work. There, the autumnal transformation was even more noticeable to me, since only 6 weeks before, I had been in the very same town basking in the heat of the summer.

In late September, Marbella was a town transformed. In the creamy golden light of autumn, shadows were slightly elongated, and the orange tone of the sunshine intensified. Trees in Marbella had themselves undergone the inevitable transformation into caramel hues, but with the sun shining through their translucent layers, they looked glorious. But perhaps the most noticeable change of all was the beach. Now a far less hospitable place, with a more bracing wind shorting the shore, but with a low afternoon sun casting a sensational silvery light over the water. Incredible shades of colour in this amazing Andalucian Autumn.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Sep 25

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September Sunset over the roofs of Palma

They say that the beauty of Mallorca has something new to offer, whatever the time of day, and whatever the season. And even though, as the summer turns to autumn, a decisive air of melancholy fills the air, the beauty of an island in flux is everywhere to be seen. This is no more evident than in the skies of an evening, when the sun descends to leave behind a trail of such magnificent sunsets that the eyes can barely comprehend the beauty before them.

On so many occasions in the last few weeks, I have witnessed such a sunset in a fleeting moment, with only an iphone camera to capture it. However last night, I was lucky enough to catch this incredible show just as I popped up to the rarely used communal terrace on top of my old town apartment block. With its unique vantage point over the old rambling rooftops, a startling silhouette of Santa Eulalia church and the cathedral beyond, and the peaks of the Tamuntana mountains in the distance, this terrace-top view is beautiful at the best of times. But last night, as the sun sank and left a trail of firey pinks and flaming yellows amidst puffy wisps of wafer thin clouds, it was truly a sight to behold. And I am so thrilled to have had my proper camera with me, so that I could share it with you.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Sep 18

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The last greens of Summer

The official start of autumn is almost upon us, and although here in Mallorca we still enjoy days of hot humid sunshine, there is a definite sense of autumnal anticipation in the air. Although the trees are not yet brown, the leaves have already metamorphosed from the rich forest green of summer to a lighter almost translucent lime green, and on the occasional tree you can already see the edges of the leaves gradually give in to a golden manifestation.

And while the onset of autumn, and the winter thereafter, is not a prospect which fills me with joy, there is a real beauty to the melancholy which fills the streets of Palma de Mallorca as the high season comes to an end. Businesses, packed all summer, start to breathe a sigh of relief for the rest which is just around the corner; plants re-emerge freshly abundant after months without rain and water; and long dappled shadows dance amongst a decidedly warmer golden sunlight, which streams through the dying leaves like a last embrace before their inexorable descent.

It is the beauty of this time which I have attempted to capture with this small set of photos, just from strolling around the streets near my home. Here in Palma, we are not quite in autumn, and the colours are not yet that characteristic autumnal auburn and gold. These are the last greens of summer.

: Autumn sunshine

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Oct 27

Marbella: After the Rain

Come October, Marbella, Spanish seaside destination of the rich, famous and unfortunately also the cast of TOWIE, takes on a different air. Gone is the exasperating closeness of balmy sunny days (my absolute favourite) when the heat envelopes like an all encompassing electric blanket. In its place, a slightly fresher air, with shorter but still sunnier days that remind of the summer just past, often with temperatures getting almost as close, but with that total immersive heat now absent. In a way, for someone as obsessed with the summer as me, an October late summer has something of a melancholic air about it, although it remains entirely welcome for an English visitor who, back at home, is already well used to the onset of cold winds, dark mornings, yet darker evenings and a pavement littered with half decomposing leaves.

After my busy weekend braving the crowds and pandaemonium of the Fiesta del Pilar in Zaragoza, we took the fast train all the way down the Iberian peninsula to Malaga in an impressive four hours. From there it was a short bus journey to Marbella where we were joined by my father in mass celebration of my mother’s “big-0”.

There followed a weekend of wining, dining, dodging the rain and basking in the sun. And as the title of this post suggests, these photos were taken just after the rain, a feature of a typical Spanish October, when wall to wall sunshine is no longer guaranteed, and it pays to have a brolly about one’s person. But as these photos show, the rain did nothing to dissipate the inherent beautiful of this most aesthetic of Andalusian towns, bringing a new freshness and vitality to the plants, places and people already tired after the demise of the long hot summer.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Oct 8

Watery Wonder of Wandsworth in the Autumn Light

After a rare extension of English summer temperatures to the end of September, the inevitable onset of autumn last weekend was heralded by a sudden drop in temperatures, but also a very welcome burst of sharp strong sunshine. Waking to the sunrays peeking their way through my window blinds this Sunday, I rose from my slumber with a new sense of excitement for the season ahead, and gathering together some long since aired padded winter clothing, I headed out with my partner to enjoy the arrival of Autumn.

Our original intention was to photograph the typical hallmarks of the season: conkers, ruby-coloured leaves and mushrooms peaking up around the damp bases of ancient trees, but perhaps because of the warmer-than-average September, or maybe because it is still early days in the autumn calendar, we found such seasonal staples to be lacking. However, what we did find, upon walking in the densely verdant landscape of South London’s Wandsworth Park, was a waterway of small ponds and larger lakes come alive with the auburn light and the rich sunny hues of autumn. While I have seen this park in every season, there was something about the interplay of autumn light, with the turning colour of the leaves and the elegant auburns and greens of the mallard ducks gliding on the surface of the water that made the entire scene a treat for the eyes.

So rather than giving you a photographic panoply of autumn berries, nuts and other forest favourites, my homage to autumn’s ascendancy is an album focusing on the stunning sparkling reflections formulated in the softly-lit waters of Wandsworth Park. Autumn in England is not known to be the most clement of seasons, but on a day like this, it can make for one of the most beautiful times of all the year.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Nov 29

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Paris | Photography Focus – Les Jardins et les chaises

Paris may not be the greenest of cities in the world, but there is something intrinsically Parisian about the parks and gardens which shape it. With their tightly trimmed box hedges and carefully manicured trees, their gravelly, sandy ground and lack of lawns (perfect for a game of pétanque or boules with a few amis) and with their long wide promenades punctuated by lone statues and cluttered with strolling well-dressed flaneurs with their equally quaffed dogs, the parks of Paris are to me the heart and soul of the city, representing the ordered formality of the Haussmann planned boulevards, reflecting the grandeur of the more built up areas of the city, and providing much needed space for the residents of the city to collectively let their hair down.

But more than the sandy paths, the clipped hedges and the boules, the randomly collected green metal chairs are for me the symbol of Paris. Rather than, or sometimes as well as the benches which line the parks, Parisian gardens are always full of scattered chairs, some angled at a steep incline to allow the sitter to langour in the sunshine, and others more upright and formal, but none of them attached to the ground so that, at any one time, you can find them in a diverse array of compositions. So characteristic are these chairs of the gardens of Paris that I have made them the focus of my photographic exploration of the Paris gardens which we were strolling through between our various trips to art galleries, photos which also aptly reflect the wonderful array of autumn colours which burned brightly in Paris despite the overcast weather and the very cold winter temperatures. Enjoy!

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Preened pups of Paris (daily-norm.com)
Paris | Art tour 2013 – Kahlo and Rivera (daily-norm.com)

Nov 8

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The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Summer harvest in November

It’s been a rather heavy week on The Daily Norm. With my latest artistic output exploring the themes of my brother-in-law’s loss, I could not share these new paintings with you without exploring the meaning behind the images. But with the door hopefully closing on that tragedy, as I pursue instead the happiness which will, I hope, come with a hearty autumn and a celebratory festive season for 2013, I thought I would end this week with a lighter touch. Yep, this week’s Daily Norm Photo of the Week is actually a couple of photos, straight from my autumn balcony.

You wouldn’t know that these photos were only taken last weekend, on a fresh November morning, but these reddening olives and my sun-drenched brugmansia are actually the last remnants of the summer still holding strong on my balcony as the cold sets in. Checking out our plants after the ravaging storms of late, Dominik and I were delighted to find that after a summer of hard labour, our olive tree has born fruit – and not just the green olives to be expected, but plump olives slowly turning a sultry shade of red. Surely olive oil chez de Lacy is to follow? Then over to the right of the olive tree, my magnificent Brazilian Brugmansia is past its summer’s glory, dropping a little as it soaks in as much warmth from the wintery sun as it can, but it’s peach-sunset edges and vibrant green leaves shine still full of the balmy promise of summer. Ahhh, those were the days.

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Morning Sunrise II (daily-norm.com)

Oct 30

Still life with Gourds

October has been a busy month, and while I could have been indulging more in the autumnal hues of Britain, applying those ruby reds and auburn oranges to canvas, I instead escaped the impending cold and jetted off to retrace a little of my summer in Spain. Then, as is so often the case when one receives a little treat, fate takes back the pleasure with his devilish sense of humour, and gave me a particularly debilitating throat infection. So apart from my Composition 11, which made a study of autumn’s descent on the once green and pleasant leaves of London’s parks, I have been altogether devoid of autumnal artistic activity recently.

So, in the knowledge that art is not all about me (if only…) and pursuing what I love to do more than anything else – gazing longingly at the stunning work of artists who have gone before me – I thought the time was only right to share with you a painting by one of my favourite 20th Century British Artists, Graham Sutherland.

Sutherland, born in 1903, has long fascinated me as one of the most striking and visceral of Britain’s modern-age artists. Made an official war artist during the second world war, Sutherland’s works are full of the morbid, often violent tumult of war, even when war itself is not the protagonist of his canvases. I love Sutherland’s depictions of the crucified christ for example, which exude the pain of the crucifixion without any of the pretensions of a renaissance depiction, and I love his spiky, pugnacious thorn-head images, which in themselves appear to stem from the imagery of the crucifixion’s crown of thorns.

Still life with Gourds (1948) © the Estate of Graham Sutherland

The painting I have chosen to feature on The Daily Norm today is therefore something of a departure from Sutherland’s more savage war and post-war works, and presents a still life composition of gourds which is warming, and even sensuous to the eye, with its bulbous curves and earthy autumnal colour palette. That said, there is some indication of Sutherland’s spiky reflections in the sharp stalks which punctuate the golden background at the top of the vegetables, while the curved lines of the bowl or perhaps table on which the objects sit are finished with sharp almost threatening points.

It’s a hearty autumnal image, but with a perhaps subtle sense of warning about the uneasy seasonal changes which are still to come. Now if this week’s hurricane winds and beautiful calm orange sunrises are anything to go by, I’d say Sutherland has got autumn painted just right.

The image in this post is the copyright of the Estate of Graham Sutherland. Remarkably, the painting appears to be for sale for those lucky few who may be able to afford to add this piece to their collection – go to www.jonathanclarkfineart.com for more details.

Oct 23

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Composition No. 11 – Autumn descends

A couple of weeks ago, a forage amongst the undergrowth and autumn tones of London’s Wandsworth Common inspired a whole series of photographs which celebrated the tangible transformation which accompanies the onset of Autumn. While the weather since that gorgeous sunny weekend has been something of a damp squid (and therefore far from ideal in which to appreciate the ruby hues of Autumn), the inspiration of those initially sun-drenched reflections on the season prompted to me to once again take out my gouache paint box, and create the 11th of my “compositions” series: Autumn descends.

Against a backdrop of leaves which turn gradually from summery green, through golden tones until they become a rich autumnal red at the foot of the painting – Autumn in full descent – a group of those delightful forest mushrooms which had prompted me to go out foraging in London’s parks grow whimsically in the undergrowth, each angled playfully one way or another, differing in heights, in shapes and sizes, just like the plethora of mushrooms I found here in London.

Looking out of the window now onto a wet and windy London, I can see that Autumn truly has descended. But it’s not all gloom – Autumn is a time of rich colour and seasonal transformation like none other, something which I hope my latest painting portrays.

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