Pics: Fancy a fine-grained 'New Holland' - made of wood?

For those wishing to appreciate art with a distinctly agricultural twist, look no further. French artist Pascal Rivet has created some marvelous sculptures of tractors, of various makes, as well as a Claas combine harvester – all made of wood – in recent years.

The most well-known of these ‘tractors’ was his piece named ‘New Holland’ – a sculpture sure enough designed as an exact (wooden) replica of a real New Holland tractor.

This piece – along with other tractor-inspired sculptures – was initially created in 2009. It was placed on exhibition in 2011 in Piace, according to the French publication Ouest France.

Image source: woodworkerz.com

However, the artist dramatically decided to burn ‘New Holland’ to celebrate the ‘Saint John’s Eve’ festival, during which bonfires are traditionally lit in France. The burning of the sculpture took place on June 20, 2015, in front of an amassed crowd. This event was dubbed ‘Jour de Fete’ (‘Feast Day’) by Rivet.

According to Ouest France, Rivet had not initially intended to burn his creation but – over time – came up with the idea, as a “spectacular funeral” for the piece. Rivet reportedly said: “Gradually and increasingly, the idea of seeing it disappear germinated to the point of settling as an absurd, baroque, tragic end to this project”.

Other ‘tractor’ sculptures created by the artist include a ‘Massey Ferguson’ and a ‘Valtra’, created during the same year as ‘New Holland’. Rivet also created a Claas harvester replica in 2007, calling it ‘Dominator’ – unsurprisingly. Prior to this, in 2001, Rivet constructed an older style of an IH (International Harvester) 554 tractor, simply titled ‘IH’.

The ‘agri’ artist

An artist with a distinctive agricultural interest, Pascal Rivet is based in France and graduated from the Ecole Superieure d’Art art school in Quimper (France).

Many of his other works contain a strong agricultural theme. Examples of these include photographs of rural settings, cotton embroideries of an overturned Fendt tractor and pyrographies (imagery burnt into a chipboard canvas) of multiple tractors and of a dairy cow. These ‘agri-art’ pieces can be seen on Rivet’s website.