Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, la piazza del Carol

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie stands on a cliff above the river Lot, and by 1900 it was emptying out. The village had lived off turning wood, the taps and spigots that went into wine barrels, and when that trade collapsed the houses started to follow. Henri Martin bought one in 1912, just below the place du Carol, and painted the square from there for the rest of his life. He worked in small separated touches laid side by side, each tuned to one hour and one kind of weather, and this view catches the roofs under a spring drizzle, the usual russet tiles gone slate-grey. Other artists came up the cliff after him. In 1950 Andre Breton bought the old bargemen's inn a few steps below the same square, and spent 15 summers of his life there.