One can only imagine what locals in his Alpes-Maritimes village think of Jonathon Brown, a tousle-haired Scottish artist who is just as likely to be ironing on the terrace in his underpants as sketching the inspirational views from his mountain retreat.

“Ironing is my zen,” says Brown, who sports Hawaiian shirts and Rupert Bear glasses and insists that, in the Villa Parasol, his stone-built home an hour inland from Nice, he has found the place destined for him.

Opening his arms to embrace the plunging valley below and the vast, brooding mountain beyond, he alludes to one of Cézanne’s favourite subjects:  “This is my Sainte Victoire.  This is my living room.  I bought a view and they gave me this little hut for shelter when it rains.”

The “little hut” is indeed modest, a far cry both from the spacious family home he left behind in Edinburgh after the death of his parents and from the ritzy, perfectly manicured pads that grace the lower mountain slopes all the way down to the Mediterranean.

Clinging to the mountainside 450m above sea level, the house was probably built just before the first world war, and there are signs that at least part of it was used to shelter animals from the elements.  This may be the south of France, but winters at this altitude can be wicked: “Some people buy up here, experience one winter and sell,” says Brown, 49.  He points to a stone-built home lower down the hill, noting that it is in shadow for three months of the year.

In summer, however, the sun shines on his small concrete terrace from early morning until it drops behind one of the black crags at the end of the valley.  But forget terracotta pots and tumbling geraniums; this open-air living room is a riot of coathangers and clothes, wine coolers, oil lamps and empty picture frames.  A pile of old champagne bottles nestles in the grass below the terrace; and on a table under the parasol that gave the house its name, orange bottle-brushes sprout from a vase.  “I hate cut flowers because they die,” Brown explains, “and there is such a thing as a bottle-brush plant, so I got real bottle-brushes instead.”

Brown found the house in 1992 after considering places in locales from Rome to New York.  Then, remembering wonderful holidays on the Côte d’Azur with his parents, he put his car on the train to Nice.  Upon arrival, he drove up behind the city to a village called Levens, perched above the River Var.  After a steak frites lunch he moved on to nearby Duranus, once home to 800 people whose livelihood depended on the now-abandoned olive groves; maybe 80 people remain.

Le gentilhomme Anglais does not pretend to have become well-acquainted with all his neighbours, not least because his work takes him away for long periods.  “I used to entertain the village tramp, who lived in a hut made of doors and who loved to tell me about the old days, but I think people decided he had become a nuisance so he has been taken away.”

Having guests to stay is a problem (or maybe a stroke of genius?) as there is only one bedroom and one bathroom, albeit with incredible views; anyone finding enough space to stay will not need an alarm clock, thanks to a dawn chorus so deafening that people can hear it on the other end of the telephone.

The top floor is occupied by a single living room split into an office area and a space buried in books and classical records.  In the long, dark winters, Brown pours a glass of wine, turns up the Mahler or Beethoven and reads into the night.

His studio is not in the house at all but in a room rented within the mairie; with his work becoming increasingly popular and sought-after, he hopes the village will increasingly take him under its wing.

The artist also finds endless inspiration in the mountains near his home, which he compares to the subject matter of many ancient Chinese scroll paintings, with their jagged peaks and swirling mists.  He insists, however, “a picture should be a journey and not a view”.

Brown’s work is also influenced by a famous friend.  Nearly 30 years ago, as an aspiring artist with no formal training, he befriended David Hockney – “a man of intellect and sensitivity, a great artist but also a great thinker” – who advised him, among other things, always to use the best materials.  (“He gave me a sketchpad of such quality that I have never dared waste it on some drawing.”)

Paintings bearing hints of Picasso and Hockney, depicting passage through a landscape (whether by car, foot or train), formed the basis of a successful exhibition he held at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh in 2002.  But his love of vibrant, Mediterranean colours has also found him instant fans in the south of France.

He has even started painting pictures of people’s homes, though his impressionistic approach is intended to convey a mood or theme rather than concentrating on anything as banal as bricks and mortar. [House Portraits]

This summer, Brown will stage art classes, and he hopes that the same, inspirational soup that has fed him since his move to Villa Parasol will, with his help, nurture others.  As for the actual house, he wants to make some changes but isn’t sure when he’ll find the time.

Would he move on? “If I was condemned never again to move more than three miles from a given point, this would be the place,” he says.  “I am not sure what brought me here but I cannot imagine anything taking me away”.