Neil Bronson, new from the Royal Academy, summers in Provence, teaching himself to paint outside. Before returning home, he and his friends, Sam and Carrie, rent a cottage on the coast, playing a langorous triangle of seaside sexual attraction. Neil's uncle interrupts the idyll, urgently seeking their help teaching at his art school in Santa Fe. A month later, Bronson and Sam move into Casa Marriner and meet the faculty members, several jealous and difficult. Bronson teaches plein air classes, often at the Galisteo escarpment. At first, the students are confrontational and awkward, but they soon grasp his enthusiasm with the New Mexico landscape. While they learn new skills, he refines his, taking the escarpment as a major motif. Crisis at the school involves Bronson in a curious project and a trip abroad to Greece. Besides discovering himself in Santa Fe, he explores the world of sex and love with one of his students, Salazar. New York must wait.