We went picnicking in the attack of roses

[Nadine Toukan]

Roses Beyond Sarajevo

Rosa damascena coccinea by Pierre-Joseph Redouté

I grew up with a fabulous man in my life up to my teens who inspired me to appreciate stories that compelled people to share beautiful images. He was a loving, interesting, generous man, with overflowing intellectual wealth and charm. As a kid he would tell me stories while flipping thru pages of his precious books, being very patient with my curiosity to know more about the who and the why and the when behind each. I was nine when he brought out Redouté’s Roses. It was a jumbo sized book (which he later gifted me) with wonderful drawings that made you smell the flowers and feel the little prick of the thorns. They were exquisite. And the scent and feel of the large, thick, yellowing pages allowed me to time travel and day dream about Empress Josephine enticing Redouté into Malmaison to paint her flower gardens. She was asking Redouté to document her passion, deeming her pleasures timeless, allowing me to one day sit with an aging man in Amman and listen to then stories.... and yes, I could smell her flowers.

Empress Josephine with her courtiers in a painting from c.1867 by Jean Louis Victor(1819-1879).

I experienced a similar feeling this morning when I read an email from Dana Sajdi titled Sarajevo through its Roses. I clicked and I could instantly smell the roses. I could hear the chatter of her journey thru these colorful streets full of people whose stories were being scripted on every corner and balcony and patch of earth. What a beautiful treat it's been to take a peak into this city thru Dana's rose filtered lens - which she has graciously allowed me to share!


And it is no wonder that in Sarajevo death and destruction of warfare are manifested thru the beauty of a rose. A Sarajevo Rose is a scar in the ground by a shell explosion during the Bosnian war that caused civilian deaths, and is symbolically filled with red resin - splashes of red and pink in the ground are a unique feature to the city once under urban warfare.

Join Dana on her journey in Sarajevo through its roses. Dana writes:

I have finally understood what the 18th-century Damascene scholar, Ibn Kannan, meant by the following frequent entry in his chronicle: "we went picnicking in the attack of roses".

Blogged on /822/2008