Nanjing city, the capital of China’s Jiangsu Province, is the new home of the world’s largest and longest 3D street painting. The artwork, named ‘Rhythms of Youth’ was unveiled on June 11; it is a whopping 365 meters long, covering over 2,500 square meters on the campus of the Communication University of China (CUCN). It has set two new Guinness World Records  – one for the largest, and the other for the longest street painting in the world.

The technique used to make the 3D painting is known as ‘anamorphic’ – the artwork is painted in a distorted fashion so it will only look right from a certain point of view. The team that created it was led by famous Chinese artist Yang Yongchun. “It took my team more than 20 days to finish the painting on the ground,” he said. “Every day, we worked on it from daybreak when we could barely tell the colors apart until it was too dark to see anything. We’ve devoted all of our time, energy and attention to this painting.”

Yang also said that the painting was made in honor of the upcoming 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games to be held in Nanjing in August. The painting includes themes from the games such as the mascot (Lele), major architectural and scenic attractions in Nanjing and the Yangtze River that runs through the city. It stretches all the way down the lane towards the end that connects to a major road. So the students on campus invariably walk towards the street art every day.

“We didn’t expect there would be so many students walking around there,” said Xu Yanting, Yang’s student. “So we’ve figured out a way to incorporate the pedestrians into our creation. We extended the painting to the busy road over there, and combined the reality with the art in this way.” The painting will stay open on the campus for the next two months. The makers were awarded their world record certificates from Guinness representatives last Tuesday.

“It was a great honor to do it and I am pleased that so many people, particularly young ones, are pleased with it,” said Yang. “I have seen them taking photos of themselves upon it. The 3D art work shows scenes of life in the city, a flowing river, cars, trees, people and buildings.”

Ho Meng, a student of the university, said: “It is so much nicer to look out at this rather than the chipped grey stone beneath. I think more of our streets should get such makeovers!”

Photos: CFP

Source: CRI Online