As we move through countries starting with the letter M in the world inspired landscapes series, Mali comes up as one of the west African countries near many other countries such as Algeria and Burkina Faso to name a few. I've painted so many of these by now that the world is filling in like a giant spherical puzzle. Its really boosted my world knowledge and I hope others will find it enlightening. Of course, its not the same thing as visiting every country in the world, which some people have done, but for someone with a full time job and no desire to fly all over the place I am okay with this series! Now to Mali, it was and currently is a region of great instability due to regional conflicts and the after effects of a brief French occupation. Prior to the colonial times, Mali was the center of a great empire ruled at some point by a man named Mansa Musa who is widely accepted to have been the wealthiest person ever to live, and that includes the modern billionaires who's relative wealth would pale in comparison. The Mali empire controlled vast amounts of gold, and was at the nexus of African- to Middle East trade routes. Analogous to Maldives, an Indian Ocean country that became wealthy from sea snail shells that were considered money, Mali became wealthy from supplying the world's insatiable appetite for gold. Just this week gold hit another record high at several thousands of dollars per ounce, so just imagine how much Mansa Musa would be worth now considering that he owned just about all the gold in the world. Its hard to know the truths in some historical accounts, one thing to point out is that despite its historical wealth, Mali now relies on minerals and agriculture for its domestic product.
Most of Mali is part of the Sahara Desert. Mostly flat, it is punctuated by sand dunes and scrub trees with the occasional oasis. I read an article about star dunes, they are dunes with starfish-like arms going in many directions. Researchers figured out that star dunes could be as much as 13,000 years old, and likely caused by wind erosion. Who knows, maybe Mansa Masu hid his gold under them?
World Inspired Landscapes: Mali, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, March 2024
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