French Artist Creates What May Be World's Largest Biodegradable Painting Ever | The Weather Channel
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Here's what the artist used to create the biodegradable painting.

ByAda CarrAugust 19, 2016


(Guillaume Legros)


A French artist has completed what is being referred to as the largest biodegradable painting on grass ever.

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In Leysin, Switzerland, artist Guillaume Legros, who goes by Saype, completed a painting larger than 107,000 square feet using nothing but flour, linseed oil and pigment, according to Forbes.


(Guillaume Legros)


The massive fresco painting, titled “What Makes a Man Great,” depicts a shepherd laying back and smoking a pipe.

A pioneer in the field of painting on grass, Saype uses a paint gun to make his huge fresco portraits. His work “ … changes with the weather, the regrowth of the grass, the passage of cattle. ... During a month, the landscapes are underlined before disappearing without a trace,” according to the artist’s website. It took him a year to come up with a paint recipe that was 100 percent biodegradable and safe for the environment.


The artist, Guillaume Legros – also known as Saype – uses a paint gun to create his land art.

(Guillaume Legros)


The fact that it is short-lived reflects the idea that all is impermanent, nothing in our life lasts forever,” Legros wrote in an email to the Huffington Post. “The fresco is dynamic. The grass grows, the flowers grow, it rains. So nature takes its rights again over the human beings’ intervention, and this idea particularly interests me.”

In order to make the piece, Saype mapped out the area of grass on which he wanted to paint, then used pickets to form a rectangle, according to the Huffington Post. At the end of each paint session, he’d check out his work with a drone to see if any corrections were needed.


(Guillaume Legros)


“The exercise was technically and physically very intense,” the artist said. “Moreover, my project is weather dependent as, if it rains, I can not paint. So I was [under] constant pressure about doing it perfectly and rapidly before the rain came.”

Passionate about both philosophy and issues that could be called “existential,” Saype uses his art to share his vision of the world and to get viewers to ponder deeper questions about human nature, our minds and our place on Earth and in society, according to his website.


(Guillaume Legros)


Born in 1989, Saype lives and works in Moutier, Switzerland. The self-taught artist was introduced to painting by way of graffiti when he was 14. He had his first gallery exhibition at the age of 16.

Since 2013, he has created gigantic faces in the landscape. His work has been in several international art fairs, and he has been invited to various exhibitions and projects in France and Switzerland.


(Guillaume Legros)



(Guillaume Legros)