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What if the iconic painting ‘The Starry Night’ were recreated in a garden using only trees and medicinal plants? It seems difficult, but Halim Zukic has dedicated the last six years to a project that combines art with nature.
A Bosnian businessman has decided to recreate one of the most famous paintings of all time in a quite original way. In the hills of the city of Visoko, Bosnia, a park inspired by the painting ‘The Starry Night’ is delighting admirers of the Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh.
Who would have thought that the marks left on the ground by tractors would lead to the creation of a natural park inspired by a work of art, specifically a painting?
But it is true, and the responsibility lies with Halim Zukic, a Bosnian businessman who bought a large piece of land two decades ago and six years ago decided to get to work.
The idea came spontaneously while observing tractors working on the land he had purchased and did not know how to utilize.
“The tractor passed over the meadows, leaving tire tracks that reminded me of a spiral. At that moment, I no longer had doubts about the direction I would take. It was the spiral from Van Gogh’s painting. Coincidence or not, it was the moment that defined the rest of my life. Since then, I have been here continuously for six years,” the owner explained to Reuters.
As he wanted the space to serve the purpose of offering visitors a retreat in nature, the businessman decided to make the landscape greener, as well as create 13 lakes across 10 hectares of land.
To recreate the painting accurately, he planted 130,000 lavender plants of six different shades along with sage, echinacea, wormwood, and chamomile, which together form the colorful circles and spirals that characterize the painting.
“This work is made with various plants and herbs. 95% of the plants used are lavender. I have about 130,000 lavender bushes and the artwork itself covers about 10 hectares, which makes it perhaps the largest artwork in the world,” the businessman stated.
Painted in 1889, when van Gogh was in France, ‘The Starry Night’ is currently housed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.