JARDÍN PARTICULAR

When we talk about a garden, we refer to a physical or subtle space full of symbolism, exuberance, and poetry.

Initially, spaces dedicated to leisure and contemplation were referred to, in the Castillian language, as  “flower gardens” to distinguish them from the gardens that provided sustenance. Even though both require a lot of work, the returns of each one differ from the other. While one returns the effort with food, the other one returns it with beauty. Besides, not everyone could afford to have one. Technically, a garden is a portion of land used for the cultivation of edible and decorative plant species with the possible addition of other elements, such as fountains or sculptures. The word garden comes from the French jart, which means “small garden”, and in turn, the French jart takes root from the Germanic word gard, which means “fence or hedge”. 

In their typology, there are public and private, conformed by potts or hectares, endemic and exotic, seasonal and irrigated, wild and tamed, sacred and profane. Since ancient times, gardens have been an important part of the planet's inhabitants and their vast cultures. Countries as diverse as China, India, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom developed styles and philosophies to bring these places to life for the simple pleasure of it. There are famous gardens that we carry in our imagination, such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, planted, according to tradition, in the 6th century B.C. by King Nebuchadnezzar II and bathed by the waters of the Euphrates.

There is also the mythical Garden of Eden where, according to the Bible, God placed man after creating him. There God also placed all domestic animals, every flying creature of the skies, and every wild beast of the field, the place where He finally created woman. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from this garden marks the beginning of humanity and at the end of time, when we return, it will take us to paradise. On the other hand, the Elysian Fields are a place of eternal greenery and fresh fragrances for the Greeks. The afterlife is reserved for those chosen by the gods, the just and heroic. In the times of the Mexican Conquest, chroniclers described Moctezuma's gardens as splendid and orderly orchards where numerous species of flora and fauna lived perfectly classified and guarded by experts. Such was Moctezuma's pride in his gardens that he allowed the Spanish conqueror to visit them on numerous occasions. In his third relationship letter, Cortés regretfully narrates the sad end of that splendor. One that died under the flames that he caused after ordering the city to be set on fire and all that was left in it. After this terrible chapter, he wrote: although it weighed heavily on me because it weighed on them much more, I determined that they burn them.

In philosophy, Epicurus's Garden is as important as that of the Capulet in literature and that of Giverny, with its water lily pond, in art. What to say about History, with a capital H, in which the "humble" meadows that stretched out around Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon became a part of the narrative of a Revolution that transformed the world under the premises of freedom, equality, and fraternity. In other latitudes and other times, Siddhartha Gautama lived for 29 years surrounded by pristine gardens, until the suspicion of decadence prompted him to flee, and yet, years later reached Buddhahood under a fig tree. Lastly, among the lilies, forgotten, Saint John of the Cross ends his night of the soul, similar to when the temperature of the soul came to equal that of the flowers for the Persian poet Shakir Wa'el (1232-1260) when he visited Granada for the first time.

Alejandra España’s Jardín Particular (roughly translated to private or particular garden), reminds me of Alice in Wonderland’s garden of talking flowers. A place where you play, dream, reflect, and weave networks that spin poetry and emotion. Through her narrative, she captures the song of butterflies, the nesting of insects, the colorful expression of birds, and the shadows of those beings that, in the pop-up style, are about to exist, evoking a childhood full of reality and fantasy that merge as one.  Additionally, something similar to the duel between Alice and the Queen of Hearts also occurs. Such are the depths of the artist, that this utopian evocation suddenly brings us to the present, to the fear we face at the ending of reality as we know it, to political discussions, to actions that are taken for the preservation of the environment, and to the manipulation of everything that happens. 

The ritual begins with the preparation of the canvas, meticulously made for what they will house. This is perhaps what takes the longest. The next exercise, that of painting, is something much more fluid, a kind of creative trance in which layer after layer of color, mixed with carefully studied and analyzed references, combine to give place to the birth to a unique Jardín Particular.

Fragment of the poem that Antonio Machado dedicated to Juan Ramón Jiménez. «The poet is a gardener. In its gardens / the breeze runs subtle / with light chords of violins, / crying of nightingales.../».