Mallorca | The Daily Norm

Sep 4

Discovering Mallorca: Exquisite exclusivity in the Embarcadero of S’Estaca

I should warn readers now that the photos you are about to see may make your eyes saw from their exposure to beauty. For few readers of The Daily Norm in the last few months can doubt the breathtaking natural beauty of the island of Mallorca I call home. But even paradise has its highlights, and the little port, or Embarcadero of S’Estaca is pretty much as good as it gets.

Nestled in a tiny cluster of rocks at the foot of the steep craggy cliffs of the Tramuntana Mountains, S’Estaca is a breathtaking coastal estate first owned by the notorious Archduke Salvator and subsequently by the even more famous Hollywood star Michael Douglas together with his exwife. While the glamorous Mallorquin finca he now calls his home is strictly off limits to most but a lucky few, the tiny little landing port of the same name can be enjoyed by the wider public, or at least those adventurous enough to traverse the steep cliffside paths stretching from the Port of Valldemossa.

Those who make it will discover what is easily one of the most stunning little ports I have ever encountered in my life. With just a few fisherman’s huts clinging to the cliff like birds nests, a semi circular landing platform on which local fishermen still sit to mend their nests, and surreal rock clusters like an illusion straight out of the mind of Salvador Dali, S’Estaca is the epitome of picturesque. And what perhaps tops it off is the water: naturally enclosed by the rock forms encircling the bay, the water is as clear, as turquoise and as stunningly beautiful as a manmade swimming pool, but with all the enticing extras that only Mother Nature can afford.

This is beauty at its most unbeatable.

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.

Aug 31

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Ocho Balcones (No.3): Kitchen Contrast

After two weeks, it has become something of a new tradition to begin the week with the latest addition of my new collection of gouache paintings, Ocho Balcone. Named after the 8 balconies which I get to enjoy every day in my Palma de Mallorca flat, it is particularly pertinent that their bright colours should start off the week afresh in this blog, since in reality it is the cheer of these sunny views which makes the prospect of working after the weekend a little more bearable.

This Monday’s painting is the third in the collection, and depicts the balcony immediately adjacent to our kitchen. I love the time of the day when the sun on the yellow building opposite is so bright that the colours of the inside of my kitchen pale by way of comparison. This painting is an attempt to capture this contrast, when, with the harsh glow of sunlight dominating from outside, the inside of my kitchen becomes something of a monochrome version of its former self.

Ocho Balcones No. 3: KItchen Contrast (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

More to come, next Monday!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2000-2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Aug 24

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Ocho Balcones (No.2): Cables in the Calle

Another week has begun, time continues to traverse its fleeting path through the year, and it’s time for me to present this week’s second addition to my new Ocho Balcones collection: a series of small gouache paintings illustrating the views which I am lucky enough to enjoy from the 8 balconies of my Palma de Mallorca flat.

Today’s view is has a much more narrow field of vision than the first. The balcony from which the aspect is seen is not even in view. Instead, the painting focuses in on a particular aspect of this view from our dining table, namely the electricity (or are they telephone?) cables which are so characteristic of the old town of Palma, and which hang directly outside our apartment.

Ocho Balcones No. 2: Cables in the Calle (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

From the first day we moved into this flat last autumn, I have been fascinated by these cables which hang at the same level as our apartment, and which provide a divertingly original aspect to an otherwise colourful view of pastel houses and the typical Mallorquin green shutters. Enveloped in some kind of striped cloth, they almost look like a complex form of flag pole suspended midair over the street. In reality I have no idea what the cables are for, nor what function the striped material has. I only know that I love to look at these structures each day, and thoroughly enjoyed capturing them in this second sunny scene from my new gouache collection.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2000-2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Aug 17

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Ocho Balcones (No.1): From the bedroom

Beloved readers of The Daily Norm may remember that during my recent blissful honeymoon, I painted a group of bedroom views which collectively became knowns as The Honeymoon Suite, for obvious reasons. I would never have thought that something so simple as a bedroom and its view might provide such potent inspiration, but then again, I am a home-loving man, and this applies as much to my trips away as to when I am in my own humble abode… and the cosier the bedroom, the happier, and consequently inspired, I feel within it.

Somewhat ironically, it took a trip away from Mallorca for me to realise just how inspirational are the surroundings of my home here in the beautiful city of Palma, and soon enough I set about painting a new collection, still very much in the production line, of views from my apartment. I am lucky enough to live in a home benefitting from some 8 little balconies, and hence my collection of the super-colourful street views we enjoy from those balconies is appropriately named: Ocho Balcones. Today I present you with the first – the view from our bedroom.

Ocho Balcones (No.1): From the bedroom (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2000-2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Aug 14

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Discovering Mallorca: Palma’s secret city

Regular readers of The Daily Norm will remember that I am utterly captivated by the charms of a cemetery. It’s not a morbid fascination – far from it. For me, cemeteries are amongst the most beautiful and thought-provoking places you can visit. Somewhere to escape the noise of life, to reflect on the emotional strength of people’s devotion to their families, and to admire some of the most startling sculptures you are likely to see in a small compact space. I have been to many cemeteries in my time, not least here in Spain where the mix of sunshine strained through shady cypress trees is particularly poetic. But if the cemeteries I have seen here before were works of poetry, the municipal cemetery in Palma de Mallorca was nothing short of a masterpiece of theatre.

Located close to the outer ring road, the cemetery is not exactly walkable from the centre of town, and as a result, it was not until now, with a hire care at our disposal, that we were able to pass by. But this cemetery was worth the wait. Never in all my life have I ever seen such a vast collection of intricately crafted, magnificently devotional sculpture and stunning architecture in such a compact space. The cemetery is probably the biggest I have ever been in, but it is also amongst the most crowded, and row after row and row after row of tombstones are loaded not with simple flat graves, but elegantly and theatrically decorated with stone crosses, angels and other elaborate sculptures so that the result is a veritable forest of ancient stone.

And most magnificently of all are the series of lavish little side chapels which line the perimeters of the cemetery. Utterly elaborate, constructed in a number of styles from baroque to classical and even 20th century modernist, this collection of buildings looks like an ancient empire, resembling the kind of spectacle which may have been found when entering a roman forum lined with temples.

But that was not all. For beneath ground level, a secret staircase led down into what was probably the most spectacular aspect of the whole cemetery – a vast double horseshoe-shaped catacomb itself lined with tombs from floor to ceiling, flooded with light from holes in the ceiling, and slowly sprinkled with dust gently falling in the rays of sunshine. It was like something from Indiana Jones, and with road names engraved in latin we felt like we have been catapulted centuries back to an ancient civilisation.

It was only when we emerged back into the heat of the Mallorca day, the sounds of the nearby ring-road resounding nearby, that we realised we had just found Palma’s secret city.

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.

Aug 12

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Mallorca Landscape (Chiringuitos)

Last Friday I was thrilled and proud to have one of my paintings featured on the front cover of the food magazine supplement of Diario de Mallorca, the island’s principal daily newspaper. The work was painted especially for the monthly supplement, which included a special feature on chiringuitos, the uniquely haphazard little beach cafe-grills which pop up all over the island on some of the most hard to reach beaches and calas and serve up the freshest fish to those lucky enough to reach them.

Mallorca Landscape (Chiringuitos) (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

But my painting represents more than just chiringuitos, although it features two, one precariously balanced on long spindly legs, and the other nestled against the side of a pile of rocks. This painting is also my homage to Mallorca, with a backdrop of the famous blue and white lenguas material which has been a protagonist of traditional Mallorquin design for centuries, and with a rocky beach setting closely resembling the kind of mysteriously surreal craggy rock forms which characterise Mallorca’s consistently surprising rocky coast.

Returning somewhat to my more surreal style, but injecting a fresh whiteness which I have not exhibited much in previous works, this feels like both a welcome reprise of a favourite style, and a new departure onto artistic pastures new, and in all things a devoted homage to the island I now love to call home.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2000-2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Aug 10

Like snow in summertime

You’d have been forgiven for thinking that the photos below, taken the other day, showed freak climatic conditions – of snow freshly laid on olive trees ripe with fruit, freshly laid in the middle of the summer. But on closer sight, another thing becomes noticeable: the startling contrast between icy white and vivid summertime greens, not to mention the rich rusty coloured ground which had largely escaped a white covering, nor the cerulean blue sky glimmering brightly under an intense sunshine.

Rather than snow in summer, these photos show one of the most interesting sights which can currently be discovered on the road from Valldemossa to Deia in Mallorca: olive trees densely sprayed in a covering of chalky white, their fruit still intact beneath it. Why this winter coat has been applied I have no idea: I can only guess that it is some kind of insecticide applied at the crucial time when the olives are almost ripe. Whatever the reason, the colour contrast presented is undoubtedly striking, and as ripe an inspiration for my camera as the juicy round olives steadily growing on those white branches.

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.

Aug 7

On the trail of S’Arxiduc (Part 2): Monestir de Miramar

Following on from our visit to Son Marroig, our tour of the Deia coast on the trail of S’Arxiduc, the Archduke Ludwig Salvador, took us back towards Valldemossa and to the Miramar Monastery. Contrary to the name, there is very little left of the 13th Century monastery which once stood on the site, other than one length of what must have been a stunning cloister, now to be found almost floating amidst a garden full of flowers. However what was left of the monastery was purchased by the Archduke in 1872 when he fell head over heels in love with the coast, and there he converted the site into another of his great coastal houses.

The old monastery, the house an its gardens

Today the main attraction of the house is undoubtedly the gardens and land which surround it. As the Archduke himself declared: “Without doubt no other place on earth deserves with more reason the name Miramar”. And on this count, I could not disagree, for just beyond the more formal gardens which surround the ancient chapel and old cloister remains, extensive land takes the visitor all the way to a cliff edge which benefits from utterly breathtaking views over to Son Marroig and the stunning emerald sea below. From there, the grounds lead on to a mysterious Italianate pool, and beyond a series of canals and mills which appear to be left over from the ingenious reign of the Moors whose engineering innovations managed to tame this otherwise uninhabitable land long before the Archduke arrived.

Views and aspects of the land beyond

It is not at all hard to appreciate why the Archduke fell so in love with this incredible strip of coastline, and it is thanks to him that much of the coast today remains unspoilt and unashamedly beautiful for us all to enjoy today.

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.

Aug 6

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On the trail of S’Arxiduc (Part 1): Son Marroig

Mallorca is a well-known magnet for people from all nations, and of all the famous foreigners attracted to the island, none has been so well admired locally as ‘S’Arxiduc’, Archduke Ludwig Salvador. Born in 1847 in the Pitti Palace, Florence, the son of Leopold III of Tuscany and Marie Antoinette de Bourbon, he came to Mallorca 20 years later to escape from Viennese court life and immediately fell in love with the island.

Championing conservation before the word even had a meaning, the Archduke was a passionate admirer of the wild beauty of the North-Western Tramuntana coast, and very quickly bought up estates along the coast (including S’estaca which today belongs to Michael Douglas) in an effort to save them from development. Once saved, he devoted himself to studying and recording Mallorcan wildlife and traditions along the land, and his seven volume Las Baleares remains an authority on the subject today.

Na Foradada and the famous marble rotunda

100 years after the centenary of his death, the island of Mallorca is marking the life of this critically important Mallorca enthusiast, including a large exhibition devoted to his life in the Casal Solleric on Palma’s leafy Borne boulevard. So with S’Arxiduc very much on the brain, it felt like the perfect time to visit two of his former properties, which I have so often seen on the way to my beloved Deia and never explored. The first, Son Marroig, was the Archduke’s home and has today been turned into a shrine in his memory.

Son Marroig inside

While the house is rich in S’Arxiduc memorabilia together with impressive antique furniture and traditional Mallorquin upholstery, the real gem for me is the outside: sun dappled gardens cooled by a small pond and a lavish array of plants, and beyond them his famous white marble rotunda, made from Carrara marble and imported from Italy, from where you can sit and gaze at the Na Foradada (‘pierced rock’) peninsula, jutting out to sea with a gaping 18-m hole at its centre. It’s a poetic structure from a man who, like no other before, appreciated the true poetry which resounds in this most stunning and unique of Mediterranean coasts.

Gardens of San Marroig

All photos 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.

Aug 4

Mallorca Sketchbook: Garden at the Son Viscos

Readers of my post yesterday will not be surprised that my short stay at the Son Viscos bed and breakfast in Valldemossa provided sufficient inspiration for the creation of a little souvenir artwork. For in that hour or so we spent in the fresh, sun-dappled leafy garden alongside the beautiful light-infused farmhouse kitchen, clutching a glass of chilled white wine in one hand and a book in the other, we felt utterly tranquil. It was as though time had stood still, and there was certainly enough to make this little sketch of the kitchen door, framed by creeping plants, with a rustic set of steps leading up to it from the verdant garden below. Precious memories, now enshrined in this page of my sketchbook.

Garden at the Son VIscos (2015, © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2015. 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.