More than ten hectares, 130,000 lavender bushes and thousands of trees… The tribute by Halim Zukic, Bosnian businessman, to Vincent Van Gogh is unique. “Vincent Van Gogh also belongs to us, it’s our heritage, and it’s a way of paying homage to him,” he explains, with his back to his garden inspired by Starry night.
Behind him, tens of thousands of lavender bushes, herbs and plants form swirls and spirals which, when seen from the sky, are unmistakably reminiscent of the celestial configuration painted in 1889 by the Dutch post-impressionist artist. “It was not possible to simply reproduce a flat image in three-dimensional space,” says Halim Zukic, 56. “Inspired by the work, we tried to stick to the shapes and proportions, to make it look as much like the painting as possible. And I think we succeeded. »
A “click” in 2018
The businessman explains that he noticed the land twenty years ago, near the village of Luznica, in the Visoko region, one day when he was returning from picking mushrooms in the surrounding woods. He bought a first plot there to build a cabin and make a small garden, with rounded shapes, without any link at the time with the Starry night. This painting, among Van Gogh’s best known, is kept at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The “click” happened in 2018, continues Halim Zukic, when he looked at the marks left on the lawn by a tractor. “To my eyes, these traces looked like spirals of the Starry night. And the decision was made immediately.” He bought more land and set to work, helped on a daily basis by “twenty to thirty” workers. Six years later, the park took its final form. “We have planted around 130,000 lavender bushes, tens of thousands of aromatic and medicinal plants, several thousand trees,” he lists, insisting on the fact that “there is not a single row right in the park, just like in nature.”
Visitors allowed “in a few months”
At the same time, he became interested in the work of Van Gogh, whom he barely knew. Today, he passionately recounts details about the life of the artist, who impressed him with his “love for nature” and the “passion with which he did his work”. He traveled to France in 2023 to visit the places of the painter’s most prolific years, in Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh painted The starry night during his stay in a psychiatric institution, shortly before committing suicide in July 1890, at the age of 37.
For the moment, few are the lucky ones who can admire the garden. You need “a little patience”, time for the plants and trees to grow. Visitors will be allowed “in a few months,” he assures. “It’s not enough to have money. It takes time for a park,” says Halim Zukic, former owner of an insurance company who now does business in tourism, and who does not wish to give away the amount invested. “I would say we made a good base. The park will be more beautiful every year.”
