June 5th, 2017: Would I Lion to You

[xoxoxoBruce]

This wood sculpture carved out of a single giant tree trunk by artist Dengding Rui Yao and a team of twenty sculptors in Myanmar took three years to complete.

After it was finished, the sculpture entitled Oriental Lion was transported 3,000 miles in December 2015 to Fortune Plaza Times Square in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province. The piece measures 47.5 feet long, 16.5 feet high, and 13 feet wide and is the world's largest wood sculpture according to Guinness World Records.

The body of the lion maintains the tree's original texture while the head, tail, and paws have been sculpted into a smooth finish. It's not clear where the wood was sourced from but it's most likely Metasequoia, a fast-growing, deciduous tree found in Hubei province.

lion