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Artist marks 200th anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky's birth with giant portrait

A land artist in northern Italy has created a giant image of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to mark the 200 year anniversary of his birth. Using an old tractor, land-artist Dario Gambarin created his latest work of art in his field in Castagnaro, near Verona. "Beauty will save us," a quote from Prince Myshkin in Dostoevky's novel "The Idiot," is the title of the giant portrait. Dostoevky was born in Moscow in 1821. The portrait was cut out of 25-thousand meters of wheat stubble with Gambarin using a tractor, plow and rotary harrow. Dostoevsky is portrayed with a long beard and blue eyes. "I believe that people can do without many things, but not beauty, the splendor of truth itself. Beauty and harmony will save us from this pandemic – beauty in the sense of safeguarding of the environment as Dostoevsky himself reminds us: 'We are in paradise, but we refuse to see it'", Gambarin said in a statement quoting Dostoevsky's novel, "The Idiot." Land-artist Dario Gambarin was born in Verona in 1958 and currently lives in Bologna. He has produced several land-art pieces and giant portraits in the past, representing Italian poet Dante, Pope Francis, activist Greta Thunberg, German composer Beethoven, and U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

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