Artist Timur Zagirov has created a beautiful rendition of Van Gogh’s famous self portrait, using a myriad of colored wooden blocks. 425 polished pine cubes, to be precise.
Viewed from a distance, the mosaic has an uncanny resemblance to the Dutch painter’s work.
Up close, the blocks become an indistinguishable wooden tapestry, colored in the various hues that makeup the painting. Really beautiful work, and totally unique from what we’ve seen. This one of a kind piece recently sold on auction.
See more of Zagirov’s work on Instagram and the Saatchi artwork website.
Images used with artist’s permission.
The blocks are set at slightly different depths, so the piece changes as you move past it, catching light on some faces and throwing others into shadow the way Van Gogh’s own thick brushstrokes do. It is a pixel portrait in the oldest sense, built by hand from wood, and it works because the source painting was already made of discrete dabs of color. For more artists reworking the masters, see Van Gogh cubified in a sculpture painting, the grasshopper stuck in a Van Gogh painting for 135 years, and what lies beyond the frame of famous paintings.
