MARRAKESH - Morocco (part II)

In 1931 he painted the studio in a cobalt blue, the same hue that tinged windows and doorframes in the unknown Berber villages lost in the mountains. This bold colour, little by little, spread all over the other surfaces of the garden, protected by high earth walls: pergolas, fountains, pools, water canals, steps, garden pots.
Now, he privileged the enclosed and silent space of the studio for his paintings and the smooth, naked skin of local women as subject. His abundant production was exposed and highly requested in Europe as locally. He alternated shouting colours to quiet oils, metallic shades to pencil, often following the fashion of the moment and the demand, rather than an original and personal view.

More job waited him outside, those blue walls had transformed the garden in a picture that required firm strokes, new shapes and infinitive shades of green.

Plants came from all over the world. The virus that changes pacific, prudent gardener beginners in fanatic plant collectors had soon infected Monsieur Majorelle. He contacted nurseries and botanic gardens, exchanged seeds, financed plant expeditions, collected plants in the wild ...“Cacti [were] imported from the American Southwest, palms shipped from the South Pacific, succulents from South Africa, and water lilies and lotus collected in Asia…”(1).
He landscaped a garden following his own project and taste, caring about local traditions, free from any nostalgia of European mixed borders, topiary and kitchen gardens.

Tall palms occupy the sky, fat cactus share spacious beds scattered with pebbles and explode with joyful unexpected flowers, eye-catching plants stand as single specimens in privileged corners. Purple bougainvilleas stretch trustfully, screens of bamboos hide geraniums of exaggerated size with enamelled flowers. Unknown plants, with disquieting foliage, silently thrive nourished by the admired glances of pale tourists.
Water refreshes the air, laps the paths flowing in narrow rills, and explodes in jets in geometric fountains, to slow down in quiet angles.
Its different sounds mingle with the twittering of birds and people stifled voices. Introduced by Monsieur Majorelle, turtles and bullfrogs dwell under the canopy of trees.

In a corner there is a small museum: the Museum of Islamic Arts; Monsieur Yves Saint-Laurent transformed the studio in a place where beautiful domestic objects, locally produced, gleam from the shelves.

After Monsieur Majorelle sudden death in 1962 the garden declined for several years until it was rescued by a famous French couturier Monsieur Yves Saint-Laurent that, with his partner Monsieur Pierre Bergè, purchased it in the early 1980s.

They restored and enriched this garden following the idea of a French painter that, in the dappled shade of slender palms, had consecrated the Blue colour.


-to be continued

Notes:
(1) Majorelle, a Moroccan Oasis, Pierre Bergé and Madison Cox, Thames&Hudson, 1999.

Photos:
Travel in a garden.