Every year since 1993, the Japanese village of Inakadate transforms its fields into living works of art. Tapping into their history as a farming area, they create incredible rice paddy art by planting different varieties of rice in intricate designs.

This summer's project depicts two famous female portraits from western and eastern art history. On one side is the iconic Mona Lisa by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci and on the other is Japanese 19th and 20th-century artist Seiki Kuroda's painting Lakeside, which features a portrait of his wife Taneko Kaneko. Both of these figures are rendered by planting seven different types of rice that, when in full bloom, help produce the necessary amount of contrast to imitate the colors and depth of the real works of art. Due to the scale of rice paddy art, it requires a fair amount of planning to execute it properly. Former high school teacher Atsushi Yamamoto has been responsible for all of the complex designs in Inakadate, for which he uses a computer to translate the color schemes of the original image into something reproducible with just seven colors of farm field rice. This year's rice paddy art can be viewed from mid-June until early October. ...continue reading