Painting | The Daily Norm

May 23

Shakespeare 400: Richard III

It probably will not have escaped your notice (particularly if you live in the UK) that this year marks 400 years since the death of Britain’s most famous ever playwright and poet, William Shakespeare. And across the country and beyond there has been something of a resurgence of interest in his work. This, together with the coincided discovery of a Shakespearian theatre troupe out here in Mallorca aroused my own Bard reawakening, not least because I have a little anniversary all of my own – some 20 years since I painted, at the tender age of 13, my first ever substantial collection of paintings which just happened to be a scene from every one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays.

So with one thing leading to another, it wasn’t long before I felt old inspirations stir up, and the decision to once again tackle Shakespeare as an inspiration for my art took hold.

Richard III (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

First off the rack is this painting of one of the Bard’s history plays, Richard III. Painted in my new style, interpretative abstraction, the work appears simple but in fact represents the story of Richard III in three clear aspects. First, the three piles of what one could mistake for bricks or books represents, at the painting’s most simplistic visual level, the “III” of Richard in roman numerals. The second meaning is the allusion to the famous scene whereby the Duchess of York (Richard’s mother), Queen Elizabeth (his dead brother’s wife) and Queen Margaret (the previously exiled wife of the former King Henry VI) meet together and bemoan and curse the Machiavellian rise of Richard III to power.

That rise is finally, and most importantly represented by the same three pillars of blocks, each of which depict an important part of the story: The central column is the staircase which tracks Richard’s bloody ascent through the rungs of power to be King, with the slash of the golden crown shining boldly at the top; the column on the right is the Tower of London and in it the two yellow cubes are the two blond princes, the true heirs to the throne who Richard famously kills in the tower in order to clear his path to the crown; and the column on the left, with its overlapping grey forms like medieval armour, represents the Battle of Bosworth at which Richard was finally defeated.

It seems remarkable that some 20 years have passed since I painted my teenage Shakespeare collection, especially now as I rediscover the same excitement which his plays engendered in me all those years ago. Now I’m looking forward to the challenge of finding them again, and painting them afresh (albeit perhaps not all 37…!).

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Apr 11

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Interpretative Abstract: Cala Sant Vicenç

After some months now of pursuing a new artistic style, I think I’ve finally hit upon a way to describe it. In cleansing my forms and decluttering my method of expression, there is something decidedly abstract about my new work. But by its nature, painting the abstract is to strip an image of almost any recognisable qualities, and instead to create something entirely without figuration. My paintings do not do that – more often than not they aim to reinterpret something recognisably visual, whether it be an famous painting from the history of art, or an Easter parade. Yet those interpretations are in many ways decidedly abstract – simplistic, geometric. And therefore I think that the best way to describe them would be to call them Interpretative Abstracts. That way, at least, I feel I am on my way to understanding what it is I am setting out to create.

Interpretative Abstract: Cala Sant Vicenç (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

This week I am featuring the newest work off my easel, in which I have attempted to extend my new interpretative abstract style to the simple landscape. Taking one of the most generic views in Mallorca, the jagged rocks of the Cala Sant Vicenç, and simplifying every aspect of the landscape, the result is a painting which is at once a place, and at the same time a simple composition.

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Apr 6

Abstract #26: Todos Rectos

I have long been inspired by the Semana Santa parades which fill the streets of Spain with their melancholic processions at Easter time. Too many times I have berated the confusion of ignorant outsiders who see the parades as anachronistic, or worse still, reminiscent of the unthinkable 3Ks. In truth, they make for a stirring spectacle, no matter that their devotional repercussions are undoubtedly far weaker than they might have been 100, even 50 years ago. Yet with the sinister pointed masks of the nazareños, the swinging thrones lifted on high allowing a precious statue of Jesus or the Madonna to make its annual outing into the streets, and their moving brass band harmonies resonating throughout cobbled streets, Spain’s Easter parades are for me a highlight of the annual calendar.

Readers familiar with my blog will know that this will not be the first time I have painted Spain’s Easter parades. They feature in my Seville Triptych, my study of Domingo de Ramos, my Semana Santa code, and my painting Catholicism Catholicism. But these solemn spectacles never fail to move me, and it was during the afternoon in the week immediately preceding the parades that a moment’s reflection on what was to come brought this image sweeping before my eyes. That same evening I bought my canvas and set to work.

Abstract #26: Todos Rectos (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

Featuring all of the various characteristics of the parades; the pointed hats of the nazareños, the enthroned statues of Jesus and Mary, the candles, trumpets and incense smoke, this new painting encapsulates Semana Santa, with each aspect reduced into an abstract form typical of my new style, and with a highly limited colour palette of deep blood red, yellows and touches of blue.

Asides from the forms, the title of the piece is something of a play on words. Todo recto in Spanish means straight on, like the direction of the parade, led by the trumpet. But to be todos rectos is to be literally all right, referring not only to the moral righteousness of those involved in the procession, but also eluding to the right wing politics with which the Spanish Catholic church was always historically associated. And of course to be recto is also to be straight. Enough said.

It’s a painting with which I am wholeheartedly delighted. A finely balanced addition to my new collection, and the many of my works which have been inspired by Easter in Spain.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Apr 1

Soller: First touch of summer

Although, as I write, some clouds have descended over Mallorca, this moment is the first in a long time when the sun has not shone. And while the sunshine in March often came accompanied by a chilly wind, reminding of winter, last weekend an intensity of heat seemed to welcome in the first touch of summer.

The moment I really felt it was when I was sitting with my family at a sunny table on the Port of Soller. As sun rays bounced across the water of that tranquil marina, through my glass of chilled white wine and onto my face, I became truly entranced by the elysium of summer. Around me, I was enveloped by one of the most beautiful harbours in Mallorca – a natural almost 360 degree inlet ringed by spectacular mountains and packed with a few rows of little white washed houses which to me recall the French Riviera.

Soller (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

It was in that moment that this painting clarified as a mental vision in my mind. I jumped up, asked the waitress for a pen and paper, and on the back of a till receipt made a sketch. A few days later the painting is done. Its key is its simplicity of composition, which allows the viewer the space to breath and reflect on a work filled with the soft colours of the Mediterranean, and to think of their own encounters with this most wonderful part of the world, when the sun first touched them after a long dull winter…

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Mar 9

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Bacchus & Ariadne

The year toils on, March is upon us, and in line with my new year’s resolution, I have made painting the very heart of my year’s endeavours. In that vein, I am progressing well with a new collection of abstract interpretations, not only of my own experiences, but also of well known masterpieces. Following hot on the heels of my interpretations of V elazquez’s Las Meninas, I have now painted what must be my favourite of my entire new collection, an interpretation of Titian’s masterpiece, Bacchus and Ariadne.

With its stunning sky of ultramarine and the sheer energy of the central character, Bacchus, jumping into the air, the painting has always been one of my absolute favourites in the collection of The National Gallery in London. Painted as part of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, the painting is based on a tale told by Roman poets Catullus and Ovid. It depicts Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being deserted by her lover Theseus on the island of Naxos. She is rescued by Bacchus, god of wine who, in a chariot drawn by two cheetahs, sweeps into the scene with his retinue of drunken followers in a campaign to seduce Ariadne. In so doing, he promises her the sky, where, he declares, she will become a constellation of stars, like the Northern Crown which can be seen glimmering in the sky.

Bacchus & Ariadne (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian, 1522-23 (National Gallery, London)

The composition and the colours are so striking that in painting my own version, I wanted to change neither, instead choosing to retain the stunning blue sky with its rolling fair-weather clouds, while in front simplifying the forms of the characters, the trees and the landscape. In finding ways to “abstract” the figures, I discovered various triangles across the composition, and used this shape, in particular, in depicting the masculine figures in the scene, while for the feminine figures, I used curving forms.

Nothing can repeat the true genius of the Venetian master, Titian, but my version of this painting, created in perfect ratio to the original, is certainly something of a high point in my new collection of a freshly revolutionised style.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Feb 25

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Barcelona (The Yellow Painting)

I’m on a new road, it’s an artistic revolution, and as part of the journey my art has become abstracted. I have discovered the joys of simplicity, like breathing the freshness of countryside air after years spent in a congested city. Perhaps, now I come to think about it, my new style is the subconscious manifestation of my new life in Mallorca, a freshness of mind which has opened up since my departure from London.

Whatever the cause, my mind is alive with new ideas, and when I recently spent the Valentine’s weekend with my partner in Barcelona, this new painting, simply entitled Barcelona (but better known in our household as “The Yellow Painting”) leapt into life. It was inspired primarily by the textures and experience of our hotel room, whose luxurious black bedspread inspired the black form in the centre of the painting, while the rose is of course the very symbol of Valentines. Meanwhile amongst the simplified shapes, the four spires of one face of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia can be found, as well as the curved square blocks of the Eixample area which predominate the shape of the city when seen from above, and which also appears in the simplified rose.

Barcelona (The Yellow Painting) (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

But this painting is so much more than what is plainly visible. It is a feeling, a sensation – moments of happiness in a weekend of discovery. When we felt free, and excited, and reinvigorated by the city atmosphere. And its predominant colour – a yellow full of hope – just about perfectly sums up the optimism which this new period of creativity has engendered.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Feb 19

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Las Meninas: Third Interpretative Exercise

I’m having an artistic revolution, and my head is spinning with shapes and colours. Ever since my last encounter with Velazquez’s Las Meninas last November, a seed has been sewn and new buds of Spring are rapidly taking shape as they shoot forth from my imagination to the tip of my paintbrush.

The latest result of this creative flowering is this, the third in my own Las Meninas exercise, each canvas taking a new approach to painting one step further. While in the second of the series, I reduced the famous figures of Velazquez’s work into simplified abstract forms, but maintained the familiar composition, in this third experiment, I have stripped the painting almost entirely of its compositional values, maintaining only the basic three dimensional construct of the room. As for the remainder, all of the shapes which can be found in the second painting are now displaced, recoloured and fragmented, distributed in an energetic whirl of abstracted movement which is entirely free in its composition.

Las Meninas: Third Interpretative Exercise (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

Had I come across a work such as this in an art gallery, I may have assumed that it was easy to paint. Yet as this painting taught me, it was far from simple. The delicacy with which a composition of this nature needs to be approached, not just technically (there are an awful lot of straight lines) but also compositionally, cannot be underestimated. I would spend long periods staring at the painting, trying to work out where the next shape should be placed, knowing that one incorrect angle or placement could throw out the entire energy of the piece, reducing the painting into something mediocre, devoid of its own story.

As it is, and with a few wrong turns rectified along the way, I am delighted with the final composition as it turns out. For me it is a composition rejuvenated, a painting which appears to burst before your eyes. And most importantly it retains, for me, some of the key ingredients of Las Meninas, albeit presenting them in an entirely different way.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Feb 1

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Lunch in the Café Eiles (Vienna Muse)

There are times in life when a single moment gains more clarity than the thousand moments before and after; when the significant size of a city space shrinks in the coincidence of two people meeting again and again, quite unplanned, as though destiny had it all preemptively narrated. Such were the moments in Vienna when I, previously untouched by the poetic force of a female muse, found myself repeatedly captivated by a mysterious, delicate girl.

It was a fascination which might not have been so fortified were it not for the repetition of the first encounter. I first saw my muse in the elegant cafeteria of the Kunsthistoriches Museum. Dominik and I had both marked her out, quite independently of one another. We were struck by the purity of her face, quite devoid of artificial make up but alive with a natural innocence, and by her clothing which was different. Her outfit looked almost home-made, but betrayed a feminine elegance in each of its carefully combined components.

I might not have thought of her again, had it not been for the coincidence of a second encounter the following day, some kilometres away on the other side of Vienna, in the Café Eiles. Unable to believe the coincidence of quite independently finding the same girl who had so captivated me in the art museum the day before, my interest peaked and I found myself utterly enraptured by this girl. Again she betrayed characteristic elegance as she went about sipping a tea while writing what looked like a journal, and knitting a rather complex scarf.

By this point I knew that the girl was becoming something of an inspiration to me, and like paparazzi I grabbed for my camera, desperate to capture the sight of this girl who I was sure I would never see again. It’s just that the following day a third encounter, in the same café, occurred. No longer a coincidence of place, but of timing. Another encounter which appeared to defy chance and confirmed to me that the paths of this girl and I were meant to cross. That she was my muse and that I must paint her.

As soon as I saw my muse on that second encounter this painting formed in my head. Now I have created it, complete with the lunch we ate in the cosy Café Eiles as I sat, captivated by my muse, I feel somehow satisfied that my muse has been set down on paper. But I can’t help but feel sad that even now, after three coincidental encounters I know nothing more about the girl who ensnared me. Neither her name, nor her voice, nor even a single thing about her. I just know that to me she was very special. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Jan 18

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Interpretation No. 19: Venice, the Dorsoduro from above

It’s hard to believe that my series of landscape interpretations are now entering their third year. Started back in Positano on the Amalfi Coast when I was inspired by the cubic contrast of urban development against rugged natural scenery, the collection has morphed and developed, now reaching its 19th in number. While traditional landscape painting seems to be too often looked down on by the so called “experts” in today’s contemporary art world, these simplified landscapes allow me the opportunity to relive a landscape, to simplify it into the basic forms which make the view so beautiful, and most importantly to relax and enjoy the process of creation.

As my little Venice seasons comes to an end here on The Daily Norm, and we travel together, to cities further afield, there could have been no more appropriate final curtain to the collection than to share this, my latest in the interpretations series. Inspired by the stunning views over the city which I photographed from the top of St Mark’s campanile and shared on The Daily Norm last week, this view for me was compositionally just too tempting not to paint.

Interpretation No. 19: Venice, the Dorsoduro from above (2016 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

With its waves of terracotta rooftops covering Venetian red, cream and ochre buildings, all leading to the magnificence of the church of Santa Maria della Salute at its centre, and with its intersection of creamy turquoise canals and a view of the Giudecca island in the foggy distance, this is a view of the Dorsoduro region at its best. And it makes for a fine addition to the urban wing (Paris, London & Palma and counting…) of my continuing collection gouache landscapes.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Jan 13

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Las Meninas (In Our Time)

I’m feeling terribly pleased with myself. It’s only the second week of January in a fresh new year, and already I have ticked a new year’s resolution to give more time to my art. For asides from a number of projects started and now pending completion, one new canvas has already left my easel as a finished piece: Las Meninas (In Our Time).

Anyone who is familiar with the great masterpieces of art history will probably recognise the setting of this painting. It is of course based almost exactly on Diego Velázquez’s best-known 1656 work, Las Meninas. And yet this is no copy. Rather it is a statement; a narrative, about what was, and what is. For in my Las Meninas, Velázquez’s room is eerily empty. There is no princess glowing in the light, nor the maids whose assistance to her majesty gives the painting its title. Gone too is the court jester, the dwarf, and the King and Queen in the background. Even Velázquez himself is nowhere to be seen. And it’s not just the figures who are missing: here even the art on the wall is blank and simplified, reduced down to blocks of colour in a room stripped of its majesty. At all that is left behind is a lone object: a ceramic figurine with a price tag, straight out of a souvenir shop.

I was inspired to paint this work back in November when I visited Velázquez’s great work, for the umpteenth time, in Madrid’s Prado Gallery. Two things struck me as I left the gallery: First, how sadly different are the richly executed wonderfully fine art works that fill the Prado from the art which so called “contemporary artists” seem to produce today. Is our time, I wondered, a time that will ever be noteworthy in the future books of art history? And second, I was struck by the degree to which consumerism and commercialisation dominates today’s imagination. The extent to which the demands of mass production and imitation cause a unique masterpiece like Las Meninas to be replicated in every conceivable form, from key rings, magnets, ceramic figures, cuddly figures, to cushions, aprons, tshirts, and mobile phone cases.

Velázquez’s original masterpiece

So in recreating Las Meninas for our time, my room is emptied of the royal sumptuousness of the past. The figures of history have retreated, and the fine art that adorned the walls is no more. The time of imperial splendour is long forgotten, and all that remains at the room’s centre is the tacky souvenir which commercialises the past; a glossy gift for a present generation so often devoid of the imagination to create unique splendour anew.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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 work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com