The Clock Tower of Fayence was built on a prominent rock at the apex of the village. Proudly erected in 1908 as displayed on the side, the tower is one of the main attractions in the village and the tourists would walk up the hill past my mother’s flat on their way to take in the panoramic view. The tower, along with its loud and sonorous bell, could be seen from the other window in my mother’s living room. However, this scene is taken from one street over so that it includes the picturesque steps up to the lookout at the base of the tower. The actual clock face is at right angles to this view and looks out over the village. The clock is hardly needed as the bell announces the time on the quarter hour. If you miss counting the number of hours on the hour, just wait and listen to the bell in the church tower chime exactly two minutes later. Apparently, the municipality and the church could never agree on the same absolute time and fortunately being Provence it didn’t matter as nobody was too concerned about time with the one exception of all the shops closing at noon so that everyone could go for a nice long lunch and siesta before opening again at three.

This particular painting was given to my father who then passed it on to me. This is another in a series where she had painted with tremendous attention to detail unlike many of her other landscapes where she used the much freer technique of her typical line and wash style paintings. Interestingly the lovely cloud effect is achieved using an irregular natural sponge to lift off the blue color of the sky to partly reveal the white of the paper.