Italian Land Artist Creates ‘World’s Largest’ Picasso Portrait

Picasso’s legacy looms large over the art world ever since the world first saw his Cubist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Now, thanks to Italian land artist Dario Gambarin, the Spanish master’s visage also looms large over a tract of wasteland in Castagnaro, Verona, according to The Guardian. 

Gambarin has made a name for himself for using a tractor to create portraits of the world’s most famous individuals, plowing their likenesses into 25,000 square meters of earth in Northern Italy. According to The Guardian Gambarin “said he was inspired by Picasso’s 1907 self-portrait to create….the largest portrait of the Spanish artist in the world.”

“I wanted to dedicate this colossal portrait to Picasso because he is one of those masters from whom you never stop learning,” Gambarin told The Straits Times.

In November 2013, the artistic agrarian hewed out the image of U.S President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a field in Castagnaro in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of his assassination and, in 2016, he plowed a likeness of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s face with the word “ciao” inscribed under his left shoulder, according to The Guardian.

Also, in 2013, he sketched the likeness of Pope Francis after the religious leader announced a day of fasting and prayer for peace in war-torn Syria. His other subjects include South African president and freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, Leonardo da Vinci, and former U.S. President Barack Obama.