If you still don’t believe that anything is possible in this world, meet Pigcasso, a 204 kg (450 pound) pig and an acclaimed painter whose paintings are selling for thousands of dollars worldwide.
The animal-rights activist from South Africa, Joanne Lefson rescued Pigcasso a couple of years ago from her bleak fate at one slaughterhouse.
She took the pig to her farm and provided her with many toys to entertain herself. Among the many toys, there were some old paintbrushes. Lefson then noticed something strange. The big ignored all the toys and got fascinated with the paintbrushes.
Lefson then decided to bring a canvas and some paint to see what will happen. To her disbelief, the pig started to paint.
Pigcasso enjoys dipping the paintbrush in paint and then dragging it in specific motions across the canvas. She is so passionate and so talented that she owns a personal gallery at the animal rescue farm and has art collectors from around the world paying up to $2,000 for an original ‘Pigcasso’ painting.
“I do not force her to paint. She paints when she wants to. Often, we pack an overloaded picnic basket and she pigs out on organic strawberries, guavas, and caramel-coated popcorn in between brush strokes. For Pigcasso, it’s simply hog heaven,’’ said Lefson.
Piggcasso’s art can be perhaps called expressionist.
Pigs are animals that are extremely curious. They always need to have toys around them to keep them entertained. If they get bored, they can quickly become sad and destructive. The most common entertainment toy for a pig is a ball. Painting, however, is a completely new-found activity for them.
Pigs are dichromats, meaning they only have 2 kinds of cones for receiving light in their eyes. Humans are trichromats. And even though pigs are not colorblind per se, they can’t perceive the color red and they can only see some shades of blue and green.
Today, Pigcasso is the only painter-pig in the world. Lefson hopes that someday there will be many painting pigs because as she says “pigs are amazingly intelligent, exceptional animals” who don’t deserve a gloomy fate at a slaughterhouse.
