Niki de St Phalle’s Inspiring lifetime work in Tuscany
Niki de St Phalle’s garden of Tarots in southern Tuscany, is very much a personal project of a lifetime. Her whole life as an artist was committed to creating that one park, which she described as a magical place where anyone could retreat to momentarily forget life’s hardship and struggle.
As she herself explained: In 1955 I went to Barcelona. There I saw the beautiful Park Guell of Gaudi. I met both my master and my destiny. I trembled all over. I knew that I was meant one day to build my own garden of Joy. A little corner of paradise. A meeting place between man and nature.
It took her some 40 years to turn her dream into reality and complete her own garden, il Giardino dei tarrochi (Garden of Tarots), a sheltered haven perched on top of a gentle hill overlooking the Monte Argentario Peninsula in Southern Tuscany. There, her landmark sculptures, the gigantic and colourful women she is famous for, stand out in the middle of the traditional olive groves.
She found inspiration in the game of tarot (hence the name) which she viewed as a metaphor for the game of life, creating 22 figures made of steel and cement and recovered with handmade mosaics, and representing the different cards. For her, tarot contained a philosophical message about life transmitted from the origins of civilisation through the symbols represented on each card. In her own words, tarot had given her a greater understanding of the spiritual world and of life’s problems, and also that each difficulty must be overcome, so that one can go on to the next hurdle and finally reach inner peace and the garden of paradise.
She herself overcame many difficulties to bring her garden to life, braving hardship and illness and seeing her strength tested through the 17 years it took her to build it, just as she foresaw in the game of tarot. During that time, she relentlessly made by hand each single piece of mosaic using glass and ceramic, and laid them herself on the giant sculptures scattered around the park. She self-financed the work through the sale of art reproductions, perfume and accessories bearing her signature, while the land was a gift from a wishful friend. On walking into the garden, visitors feel they are entering a unique place, a kind of lush and peaceful oasis, reminding them that the motherly emotions of love and protection need to always win over discord.
One of the park’s most stunning pieces is the Empress, a giant and feminine Sphinx-like figure, round, curvy and all-embracing. The Empress is the great goddess. She is the queen of the sky. Mother, whore, emotion. Sacred magic and civilisation, she explained. De Saint Phalle made her her home while working in the garden, always looking for renewed strength to pursue her labour. She physically lived inside the sculpture with her husband, the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, who greatly contributed to it with his own mechanical sculptures. Their unusual house was left as it was and can be visited as part of the tour. It is quite symbolic that she chose to work inside the belly of this motherly figure, going back to the womb to keep her path.
Among the other monumental sculptures is the High Priestess, representing intuitive feminine power and the irrational unconscious with all its potential. Water flows from the figure’s giant mouth into a wide fountain where the wheel of fortune continously turns round like the wheel of life (a mechanical work created by Tinguely). The large-mouthed figure is reminiscent of sculptures in another well known park in the region: the Monsters Park in Bomarzo built in the 16th century. Not far behind, on the same huge scale is the Emperor, the card for masculine power and a symbol of organisation and aggression. Next to it is the Falling tower, representing construction of a mental or physical nature which are not built solidly.
On a side path, hidden behind the more imposing constructions, some smaller pieces come as an extra surprise. The devil, the card for energy and sex representing the loss of personal freedom through addiction of any kind, is particularly lively. The World, in all its glorified stance, is the card for the splendor of interior life, whereas the lovers, touchingly intimate, is the artist’s version of Adam and Eve.
Niki de Saint Phalle made her name as an artist in the 1960s and 1970s when she created her landmark sculptures, the famous nanas (girls in French slang), giant round and feminine figures painted in bright colours. The garden of Tarot is her work at completion. Th park opened to the public in 1998 and she died in 2002, peaceful with the knowledge that the work was done. It is open to visitors daily from April to October.
Website for more info: http://www.giardinodeitarocchi.it
