Many artists paint what they see. Max painted what he couldn't see. He looked at a floorboard and saw a forest. He looked at a grain silo and saw a monster.

You can visit the house where Max Ernst lived in Huismes and Sandy Calder’s Studio in Saché. Both villages about an hour’s drive from Amboise.

Max Ernst, the French Surrealist, died on his birthday, 1 April 1976. He loved the irony. It was, you might say, surreal.