"L’homme qui plantait des arbres" #2 – Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal, Botanical Garden, Montréal, Québec

Montreal's contribution to the mosaiculture competition consisted of 10 different statues: a solitary figure about 5 metres high stoops to plant a sapling; a furry dog covered in wild grass sits by his side; horses and woolly sheep covered in thyme graze nearby. This installation, which covers 2,000 square meters, consists of more than 500,000 individual plants and flowers. It required several months of work to complete.

The figures illustrate a short story entitled "The Man Who Planted Trees" (in French: "L’homme qui plantait des arbres"), an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giono, published in 1953. The tale is quite short – only about 4000 words long. It was composed in French, but first published in English.

The story begins in the year 1910, when a young man is undertaking a lone hiking trip through Provence, France, and into the Alps, enjoying the relatively unspoiled wilderness. The narrator runs out of water in a treeless, desolate valley where only wild lavender grows and there is no trace of civilization except old, empty crumbling buildings. The narrator finds only a dried up well, but is saved by Elzéard Bouffier, a middle-aged shepherd, who takes him to a spring he knows of. Curious about this man and why he has chosen such a lonely life, the narrator stays with him for a time. The shepherd, after being widowed, has decided to restore the ruined landscape of the isolated and largely abandoned valley by single-handedly cultivating a forest, tree by tree. He makes holes in the ground with his curling pole and drops into the holes acorns that he has collected from many miles away.

The narrator leaves the shepherd and returns home, and later fights in the First World War. In 1920, shell-shocked and depressed after the war, he returns. He is surprised to see young saplings of all forms taking root in the valley, and new streams running through it where the shepherd has made dams higher up in the mountain. The narrator makes a full recovery in the peace and beauty of the regrowing valley, and continues to visit Bouffier every year. Bouffier is no longer a shepherd, because he is worried about the sheep affecting his young trees. He has become a bee keeper instead.
Over four decades, Bouffier continues to plant trees, and the valley is turned into a kind of Garden of Eden. By the end of the story, the valley is vibrant with life and is peacefully settled. The valley receives official protection after the First World War and more than 10,000 people move there, all of them unknowingly owing their happiness to Bouffier. The narrator visits the now very old Bouffier one last time in 1945. In a hospice in Banon, in 1947, the man who planted trees peacefully passes away.

The story was adapted as an short animated film by Frédéric Back and released in 1987. It earned a number of awards including an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Back's animations provided the inspiration for the sculptures on display at the Botanical Garden.

For a description of the art of Mosaiculture and of the Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal competition, please turn to the first photo in this series at:

www.ipernity.com/doc/jonathan.cohen/33872015