Mmm ... meaty Mona Lisa

by Joe DiStefano, Posted Oct 24th 2008 @ 9:59AM

Take a good look at this reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Don't worry, you're eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those are slices of various sausages and luncheon meats in the background. In fact, the whole painting is made of meat. It was part of a show put on by six Russian artists to celebrate the 100th birthday of Tavr a meat processor located in southern Russia.

The artists spent three days fashioning the meaty museum of classic paintings, which also includes reproductions of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and Pablo Picasso's Girl on a Ball. They used 40 pounds of meat to create these canvasses fit for a carnivore. Visitors to the show were offered fresh Tavr sausages.

What's it like for artists to work with meat? Well, Aleksandr Solomko likes ham as a medium because it's soft and flexible. "The biggest trouble was to stick the sausages to the canvas. Gelatin turned out to be the best solution. It's perfectly natural and doesn't affect the taste. However, we had to rework some parts of the picture, when it started to darken after the meat spent some time in the air."

Source

Filed Under: Hacking Food, Food Oddities, Ingredients
Tags: asia, fiine art, FiineArt, hacking food, meat, Mona Lisa, MonaLisa, oddities, Pablo Picasso, PabloPicasso, paintings, sausage, sausages, Tavr, Vincent van Gogh, VincentVanGogh