(These are not my photos - they arrived in an e-mail so I don't know who should be acknowledged for them. I hope they'll not mind me using them to show an apsect of our wonderful world).
Even in a job as mundane as planting rice a creative spirit cannot be suppressed.
You have to scroll down and watch as a picture develops as the rice grows.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew from meetings of the village committees. Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan , but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly planted.
Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye.
Instead, different color rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.
A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants.
The colours are created by using different varieties. This photo was taken in Inakadate , Japan .
Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the coloured patterns in the time between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square meters of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.
The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
Rice paddy art is similar to corn field art here. This is quite a lot of work isn't it?
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely idea! Thanks for sharing these interesting photos.
ReplyDeleteCanadian Chickadee