“We are opening soon” (or, Otvaramo uskoro, in Bosnian), announces the website of the curious, charming, beautiful, original, artistic… landscape attraction to which we are going to dedicate this space. It is located in the hills of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the green fields merge with the sky. It is a monumental homage to a work of art painted in June 1889, renowned for its originality and audacity: The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. The 10-hectare painting-park-landscape is called Starry Night Retreat and is located in the mountains of the town of Visoko, some 25 km northwest of the country’s capital, Sarajevo.
“I see this retreat as a unique space where nature and art come together in a profound way”, says its creator, Halim Zukić, a former insurance company owner, as quoted by Forbes. “Everything was created spontaneously, step by step, by myself and my amateur team”, he adds. The inspiration for Starry Night Retreat came to Zukić while observing the swirling tracks of tractors in hay fields. “From that moment, I was no longer in doubt”, he told Reuters. By the time he opens his… fields, Starry Night Retreat’s transformation of the sublime into the everyday will have taken more than six years to materialise.
130,000 bushes of six different shades of lavender, as well as other species of medicinal and aromatic plants such as sage, echinacea, wormwood and camomile, and the banks, slopes, fields and ponds that comprise it, recreate the dancing brushstrokes and swirls of pigment of Van Gogh’s painting. In this regard, Zukić tells Forbes that “the construction machines served as our brushes, and our colours were plants”. He concludes, “throughout the space, there is not a single straight line”.
The Starry Night Retreat, as you can see, is more than a park; it is a testament to the vision, creativity and power of perseverance of one man; and the team that accompanied him. In this corner of Bosnia Herzegovina, Van Gogh’s brushstrokes have found a new expression and the art of a large canvas has transcended to come alive in the heart of nature. The official inauguration of the new expression, of this “retreat”, is scheduled for May 2025. We will stay tuned.
If you want to know more, here is an extensive documentary on Starry Night Retreat by Al Jazeera Balkans:
Sources: Starry Night Retreat, My Modern Met, Reuters, Forbes.
Images: Amel Uzunovic and Almin Tabak, courtesy of Starry Night Retreat.
