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At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking it's just another painting, but this picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s classic The Last Supper is made entirely out of wrapping paper from McDonald's meals.
The unique artwork was created by a Japanese man known only as Takaya, who decided to try out traditional chigiri-e [pronounced chee-gee-ree-eh]. Chigiri-e is an old Japanese art form that involves tearing coloured paper to make images that resemble a watercolour painting.
Takaya, who'd never used this technique before, is a devoted McDonald's patron and decided to recreate the iconic portrait entirely from the packaging used for the fast-food chain's burgers.
The talented artist took to Twitter to share his work of art.
“I recreated The Last Supper using only McDonald’s wrapping paper (by chigiri-e). I am most proud of the fact that I could prove that this can be done without using other materials or paints, but only with McDonald’s wrapping paper,” he says on social media.
Takaya's contemporary take on the classic has drawn attention from far and wide, and Italian officials have already cleared space for it to hang on one of the walls of the dining room of the former Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, where Leonardo's original painting is displayed.
He says he was inspired to use the packaging when McDonald's prices in Japan increased in March.
“I also had random thoughts floating around my head like, ‘I’m going to have a McDonald’s party all by myself before McDonald’s raises their prices.’
“It was at this point that I became convinced that somehow I would show my gratitude for all the help from McDonald’s that I'd received so far,” says Takaya, who eats at the fast-food restaurant at least four times a week.
“Later, I stopped by an exhibition of graduation works at an art university in Tokyo, and while I was looking at the exhibits of the students, I realised, ‘Yes, I'm a painter, too’.”
It took him 10 hours to recreate just one character in the image.
To get all the colours, he used a wide range of wrappers, including 10 hamburger wrappers, 10 chicken crisp wrappers, one cheeseburger wrapper, 10 chicken Filet-O wrappers, one teriyaki chicken fillet wrapper, two shrimp filet wrappers, six sausage McMuffin wrappers, one double cheeseburger wrapper, one teriyaki McBurger wrapper, one Eguchi (egg cheeseburger) wrapper, one bacon-lettuce burger wrapper, one filet-O-fish wrapper, one Spaby (spicy beef burger) wrapper, and three samurai Mac seared soy sauce-style double-thick beef wrappers.
Takaya occasionally ordered more food than he could consume in a single sitting just to obtain a specific colour. He mostly used Maixiang chicken wrappers because the colour is reminiscent of a paler skin tone, making it ideal for use as the skin and hair of the characters in the painting.
Because the back of McDonald's wrappers is made of a thin vinyl film that deters glue, he first had to peel the backs off in a painstaking process.
It took a month of perseverance and patience for Takaya to finally complete his portrait, but it was all worth it because people are certainly lovin' it.
SOURCES: JAPANIINSIDER.COM, INF.NEWS, TWITTER.COM
