The 'Mirror' on the River Loue at Scey-en-Varais, near Ornans

Courbet grew up at Ornans in eastern France, and all his life he came back to paint the valley of the Loue, the river of his childhood. In 1864 he worked this stretch just past the town, where the fast water widens into a deep, still pool the locals called the Mirror of Scey. On a calm day its surface holds the whole cliff and sky upside down. Courbet painted the spot more than once, laying the rock on thick with a palette knife rather than a brush. Above the pool, on the hillside, stands the stump of a ruined medieval tower, there in his day as it is now.