MARRAKESH - Morocco (part III)

Maybe Monsieur Majorelle knew the story of this colour, a passionate one. First, highly scorned because associated to barbarian tribes and then, from the end of the Middle Ages, celebrated as light that comes from God. The mourning and grief that darkened the Madonna’s cloak in the deepest and sad colours, starting from the XII century, were expressed just with the blue that, little by little, became brighter and charming. Obtained from the precious and expensive lapis lazuli, it was used parsimoniously by the painters of the XVII century, who still discussed the mystery of colours until science, a century later, explained it with laws and numbers.

There are other gardens in Marrakesh, once one of the greenest towns in North Africa. They celebrate the Islamic garden with its rules and its features. A tradition spread from ancient times, from the South of Spain to India through Sicily, Morocco, Tunisia and Afghanistan. Each of them has developed a different story, starting exactly from the word that designates “garden”. In Morocco, just one word can not express its variety: a single name could not contain the extent of an orchard and the quiet freshness of a courtyard. Here a short-list (1):
- Agdal: is a Berber word that once designated public meadows and now large, enclosed orchards, artificially irrigated;
- Arsa: is an urban, irrigated apple-orchard;
- Jnan: are cultivated fields in the desert oasis;
- Riyad: indicates a small patio in an urban, private house. It is paved with marble, tiles or bricks, has a small pavilion or fountain in the centre and it is surrounded by galleries. Perfumed plants, symmetrically planted, are privileged.

In Marrakesh there are samples for all of them. The Aguedal Gardens, a vast orchard with lemons, oranges, apricots and olive trees; the Menara Gardens, an imperial garden with an enormous pool and an enchanting pavilion surrounded by olive and fruit trees; the Palace Bahia, or The Palace of the Favourite, with courtyards paved with marble and zellij tile works, planted with cypresses, orange trees and jasmine and embellished with pools; the Palmeraie or Palm Grove that, according to a legend, grew from the stones left on the ground by soldiers of a 11th-century Almohad sultan and once was irrigated by khettaras, an ingenious system that conveyed water from the High Atlas Mountains. Or, you just have to stroll to see, against the ramparts that encircles the old town, the shadow of tall palms sketched by the same relentless and untameable sun that changed the life of Monsieur Majorelle.

Le Jardin de Majorelle was a surprise that did not finish when I left it. A year later, I was in Seville, Spain. From the top of the Giralda tower I thought to the minaret that had served as its model: the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh. In my bag I had a small book I have just purchased, the story of Le Jardin de Majorelle.


Gardens visited in Marrakesh, Morocco on December 2005:
Le Jardine de Majorelle, Menara Gardens, Le Palais de la Bahia.

Photos:
Travel in a garden;
For the paintings Itinéraires marocains: regards de peintres, Maurice Arama,
Part I : Le souk aux tapis à Marrakech, huile sur toile, M.B.A. de Nancy
Part III: Le Marchè de Tanger, 1918 huile

Further readings:
Majorelle, a Moroccan Oasis, Pierre Bergé and Madison Cox, Thames&Hudson, 1999
Itinéraires marocains: regards de peintres, Maurice Arama, avant-propos de Gaston Diehl Paris, Jaguar 1991.
Bleu, historie d’une couleur, Michel Pastoureau ; traduction of Fabrizio Ascari, Milano Ponte delle Grazie, 2002.
Il Giardino Islamico, Luigi Zangheri, Brunella Lorenzi, Nausikaa M. Rahmati, Firenze, L.S. Olschki, 2006. (1)
Il giardino islamico: architettura, natura paesaggio, Attilio Petruccioli, Milano Electa 1994.

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.