The World's Longest Wooden Sculpture

A wooden sculpture, featuring the famous painting "Along the River During the Qingming Festival," succeeds in creating a new Guinness World Record - "the world's longest wooden sculpture" - on November 14, 2013.

Chinese artist Zheng Chunhui spent four years creating the sculpture, which is 12.286 meters long, 3.075 meters high and 2.401 meters wide.

It’s no surprise that this incredible work of art is drawing so much attention. It’s amazing, but not just because it’s so big, but also because it’s so incredibly detailed.

Four years in the making, the tree carving is based on a famous painting called “Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” which is a historical holiday reserved to celebrate past ancestors that falls on the 104th day after the winter solstice. 

The original painting, referred to as the 'Chinese Mona Lisa' because of its fame, was completed during the Song Dynasty by artist Zhang Zeduan.It is painted on a hand scroll and was designed to be looked at by slowly unrolling the paper from right to left, an arm's length at a time, like an ancient comic strip.It is considered of huge historical importance as it documents the day-to-day lives of Chinese people, both rich and poor, 900 years ago.

Several later versions were created but with scenes added from the Ming and Qing times, in keeping with the Chinese tradition of contemporary artists reworking ancient masterpieces.

While Chunhui's version will be easy to distinguish for obvious reasons, it doesn't add any scenes from modern-day China.

On November 14th the Guinness World Records arrived in Fuzhou, Fujian Province where the piece is currently on display to declare it the longest continuous wooden sculpture in the world.