There’s no questioning the Mona Lisa ceased to be a prime example of renacentist painting long ago and became a full-fledged pop culture icon instead. Re-imagined by artists such as Dalí and Warhol, referenced in countless movies and books, its quizzical smile printed on T shirts and coffee mugs – Leonardo Da Vinci’s darling is pretty much everywhere. Laura Hadland’s amazing Mona Lisa bread mosaic is the latest addition to the list of tributes.
This isn’t Laura’s first experience involving artistic uses of bread. Last year, the 27-year-old museum curator from Leicester, England, was joined by 40 collaborators in the making of a giant toast portrait of her mother-in-law, which earned her the Guiness Record for world’s largest toast mosaic. Encouraged by her success, she now put together her own tasty reproduction of La Gioconda.
The location where it was assembled couldn’t have been better picked: The “Vittorio Veneto” Square in Matera, a city in the south of Italy famous for its signature bread. Let’s throw around some numbers to understand the full scope of Laura’s project: The mosaic was 9 x 11,2 meters in size (29.5 x 36.7 ft, approximately) and it was comprised of an impressive 10,080 pieces of plain white bread, toasted bread and covered-in-chocolate bread. Each piece had to be cut down manually to fit the 10×10 cm (almost 4×4 in) squares that made up the blueprint, and was glued down using glucose syrup.
The entire venture was captured in film for a Nippon television program. It was a truly intercultural affair seeing as Laura and her friends were helped by the Japanese film crew, three Japanese actresses featured on the program, and representatives from the local “Pane di Matera” (“Bread of Matera”) consortium. Too many cooks, in this case, didn’t spoil the broth – erm, toast.
Looking for more Mona Lisa geeky homages? Try Mona Lisa Represented Through Computer Folders, Mona Lisa Painting in Lego and The Mona Lisa Of Motherboards Design.
Via: Oddity Central
