Today I invite you to spend some time in a magnificent Majorelle Garden in Marrakesh created in the early decades of the 20th century by a French painter and botanist Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962). The garden has been open for public tours since 1947.
Apart from the rich botanical collections, the Majorelle garden amazes with intensive colours where the dominating one is a cobalt blue that has also acquired a name of Majorelle azur. It is used for the artist's studio, garden constructions and even flower pots, contrasting with lemon-yellows and light sky blues of the forged bars and gate.
The studio is surrounded by incredible variety of plants brought by the artist from the continents around the world: bamboo from the South Asia, African palms and Mexican cactuses, plants from Mesopotamia and India, Canary islands, Mediterranea and even California!
The Majorelle follows a typical tradition of Morocco to protect the privacy of housings behind the wattle and daub walls. Lush tropical greenery under the burning Moroccan sun, babbling Arabic fountains and gazebos, golden fishes frisking among water lilies in the blissful coolness of ponds, narrow paths curling among bamboo brushwoods - Jardin Majorelle is a pure garden paradise!
After a car accident Jacques Majorelle had to return back to France but the garden remained open for public visits, and since then is one of the most famous sights of Marrakesh.
After Majorelle passed away in 1962, his wife tried her best to save the garden but it wasn't possible because of the financial problems and the garden was put on sale...
Fortunatelly, the Majorelle Garden was saved by the famous couturier Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé. The friends bought the garden, made some necessary restoration works having in mind an idea of the future granting tenure to the state.
...An American landscape designer Madison Cox took care of the general appearance of the garden and a Moroccan botanist Abderrazzak Ben - of the plants themselves. As a result, the quantity of the garden's rare plants was increased twice!
The studio of Jacques Majorelle turned into a museum of Moroccan Art where the paintings of Majorelle and a collection gathered by Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé are exhibited.
I do hope that this virtual journey would become a reality one day soon for those of us who haven't visited it yet..!
Credits: text by me, images by Corbis/RPG, Alamy/Diamedia, Garden Picture Library via Seasons magazine.
Enjoy a more 'live' tour around the Majorelle :)
After reading several Majorelle Garden related materials I have found myself wondering about Majorelle's paintings as well. So, here I've googled a few to share:
1 comments:
thanks for the kind words on my blog Zara!
And wow look at the garden! Wish I were there...
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