Every year, people in Inakadate, Japan, grow rice in different patterns in flooded fields, called paddies, to produce stunning pictures. This tradition of creating rice paddy art is known as tanbo, and it began in 1993. Thanks to decades of practice and new cultivation methods, the designs have grown incredibly detailed.
Last year, farmers and local organizations planted rice to form two famous paintings: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and Lakeside by Kuroda Seiki. They used seven strains, or types, of rice to produce different hues. Atsushi Yamamoto, a former art teacher, helped plan the pictures. “By increasing the number of colors, I was able to design more complex rice paddy art,” he says.