A Bosnian businessman, passionate about the works of Vincent van Gogh, decided to transform a mountainous area in Bosnia into a scene that realistically embodies the Dutch painter’s painting “The Starry Night” on an area of no less than 10 hectares.
Halim Zukic told Agence France-Presse, “Van Gogh also belongs to us. He is our legacy, and it is a way to honor him.”
A maze of thousands of lavender bushes, herbs and plants form a replica of the heavenly scene, which was painted in 1889 by the Dutch Post-Impressionist artist.
Zukic, 56 years old, explained that “just reproducing a flat image in three-dimensional space was not possible.” He added, “Inspired by the work, we tried to adhere to the shapes and proportions to make it appear as identical to the painting as possible. I think we succeeded.”
The businessman narrated that 20 years ago, he noticed the site near the village of Loznica, in the Visoko region (central Bosnia), upon his return from picking mushrooms in the surrounding forest.
He bought the first plot of land there to build a cottage and create a small garden with circular shapes, which at that time had no connection to Van Gogh’s famous painting “The Starry Night,” which is preserved in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
But the idea came to him in 2018, when he looked at the marks left by a tractor on the grass. He said, “These monuments seemed to me like spiral shapes like those in the painting (The Starry Night), and I made the decision immediately.”
Halim Zukic had no choice but to buy more land and begin work, with between 20 and 30 workers helping him daily.
After 6 years, the garden took its final form, and he confirmed that he planted “about 130,000 lavender bushes, tens of thousands of aromatic and medicinal plants, and thousands of trees,” noting that “there is not a single straight line in the garden, just as it is in nature.”
At the same time, the businessman became interested in the works of Van Gogh, in which he had not yet been deeply immersed. Today, he enthusiastically recounts details about the life of the artist who impressed him with his “love of nature” and “the passion with which he did his work.”
Zukic traveled to France in 2023 to visit the places that witnessed the artist’s most prolific production, such as Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh painted “The Starry Night” while he was in a psychiatric hospital, shortly before his suicide in July 1890 at the age of 37.
Currently, visits to the garden are limited to a small number of visitors, and Zukic called on those interested to enjoy “a little patience” while waiting for the plants and trees to fully grow, noting that it will be opened to visitors “within a few months.”
Zukic, who owned an insurance company and currently works in the tourism field, explained, “Financial capacity is not enough to establish a park, but time must also be allocated.”
He added, “I think we have created a good base, and the park will become more beautiful every year,” refusing to disclose the value of the amount he invested.