In a profound marriage of art and nature, a Vincent Van Gogh-inspired retreat in the Balkans is set to start welcoming visitors next spring. The dazzling landscape is the pet project of Halim Zukic, who planted 130,000 herb bushes in various shades to emulate those iconic celestial swirls in the artist’s 1889 painting “The Starry Night.”
Halim first conceived of Starry Night Retreat six years ago when he noticed twisting wheel tractor marks left in a hay meadow on his central Bosnia-property. Immediately reminded of Van Gogh’s famous artwork, he began envisioning a unique escape where visitors could “reconnect with essential elements of their being and engage their senses,” his daughter Merjem Zukic told Nice News.
“Construction machinery served as our brushes, and our colors were plants, predominantly lavender, completed by a wide array of aromatic, medicinal, and culinary herbs,” said Merjem, who serves as hospitality manager for the family project. “Throughout the space, there is not a single straight line.”
Spanning 25 acres and featuring a natural amphitheater, the garden is just one element of the sprawling property, which encompasses a total of 173 acres and includes 13 lakes and thousands of trees. Halim hopes the retreat will attract artists from around the globe, and plans for it to act as an open-air museum and cultural hub.
Visitors to the garden will certainly be engaging multiple senses, as its creator envisioned: In addition to lavender, the multicolored plantings include aromatic sage and chamomile. Shades of green, yellow, gold, purple, and pink delight against the sky’s blue backdrop.
Though from a bird’s-eye perspective Starry Night Retreat looks meticulously designed and executed, Halim and his team actually went into the creative process with no set plan. “Everything was created spontaneously, step by step,” Merjem noted.
Because of this intuitive approach, some steps had to be repeated multiple times to achieve the final effect, while also taking great care not to disturb the existing environment any more than necessary.
Motivated simply by “a desire to create,” per his daughter, Halim spent the better part of two decades tending to and enhancing the landscape before ideating its current form.
“Ultimately, this retreat is a unique homage to Vincent Van Gogh and to all those who dared to be different,” Merjem shared, “and who bravely followed their inner callings, despite the material sacrifices such a path may bring.”
RELATED: Nature-Inspired Library, Featuring a “Canyon of Books,” Set to Be Built in China
Share to:
