Brighton Royal Pavilion Orient Nights

Print description

Architectural art print of the West elevation of the Brighton Royal pavilion. The colour palette ‘Orient Nights’ combines steel blue and mustard seed reminiscent of far away whispered tales and legends. Islamic glazed ceramic mosaics create the backdrop for the Pavilion. These form an architectural screen with a myriad of lobed intersecting double arches. A design that echoes the delicate works found at the Patio de las Doncellas in the Alcazar Palace in Seville.

Print details

Digital pigment print from original ink drawings. Printed on fine art paper using archival inks. Available in sizes A0,A1, A2, A3 or A4 as limited editions of 100. Each print individually signed and numbered.

Brighton Royal Pavilion

John Nash remodelled The Brighton Royal Pavilion into what we can see today in glorious  Indo-Saracenic style. The works of the Marine Pavilion began in 1815 and took seven years to complete. George chose architect John Nash who proposed an Indian style in response to the design of the new stable block. Nash was also inspired by landscape gardener Humphrey Repton (who had published designs for a new palace based on Indian architectural forms) and based many of his ideas on a publication called Oriental Scenery by Thomas and William Daniell (1795-1808).

The complex composition of domes, towers and minarets created a romantic exterior. Either side of the central large dome are two towers that serviced the interior rooms over the Saloon, one with a staircase, the other with a hoist. To achieve a picturesque effect the rendered surfaces of the Royal Pavilion were painted to create a unified vision of a building made of Bath stone.

Alcazar de Sevilla. Patio de las Doncellas

The Royal Alcázars of Seville, historically known as al-Qasr al-Muriq and commonly known as the Alcázar of Seville, is a royal palace in Seville, Spain, built for the  king Peter of Castile. The palace has many wonderful buildings and gardens though my favourite is the ‘Patio de las Doncellas’. This courtyard (patio in Spanish) was the center of the public area of King Peter I Palace. It is surrounded by poly lobed arches, one of the most characteristic decorative motifs of the Almohad dynasty, along with the sebka style. The shell (symbol of fertility and life), the Hand of Fatima, (synonymous of protection), geometric compositions, schematic plant decoration and Kußc Arabic epigraphy complete the decorative language of this courtyard. The gallery surrounding the main courtyard is composed by epigraphic decoration made of plaster. The bottom of the walls are decorated with ceramics, following the “alicatado” technique. The central part of the Maidens Courtyard was covered with marble slabs, with a Renaissance fountain during almost 500 years. After the archaeological excavations of 2005, it was restored as established in the fourteenth century.

Orient Nights

I have named this collection ‘Orient Nights’. It echoes memories of India, Turkey. Nights spent by streams, on road side cafes with fairy lights and tented roofs, next to ancient temples and constructions.