Largest creative work

The largest creative work is the largest or longest item in different fields of creative works. Some pieces were created with the specific intention of holding the record while others have been recognised for their size after completion.

Literature

A page from the largest general encyclopedia, the Yongle Encyclopedia.

• The largest known general encyclopedia is the Yongle Encyclopedia commissioned by the Chinese Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle in 1403. It comprised 22,937 manuscript scrolls in 11,095 volumes, occupying 40 cubic metres (1400 ft³).
• The longest poem in any language is the Mahabharata, with more than 100,000 couplets.
• The longest epic cycle is the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar, which contains over 20 million words in more than one million verses.

Performing arts

Film

• The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV, is officially the world's longest film. Running 5,220 minutes (87 hours) in length, the film is a documentary performance of artist L. D. Groban reading his lengthy poem "A Cure for Insomnia" over the course of three and a half days, spliced with occasional clips from heavy metal and pornographic videos.^[1]

Music

• The longest musical performance began on 1 January 2000 and is set to last for 1000 years before repeating. Composed by Jem Finer, Longplayer is played in a 19th-century lighthouse near Canary Wharf, London, and other public listening posts.^[2]

Television

• The longest running U.S. television series is Meet the Press, a news program which started on 6 November 1947 and continues today.

Theatre

The Mousetrap has been running continuously in London since 1952. It has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with more than 25,000 performances taking place,^[3] and the longest running show (of any type) of the modern era.

Visual arts

Painting

• The largest painting by a single-artist is Sun Lei's 21,594.6 square metres (232,442 sq ft) Beautiful Soul of China, made over a period of 8 years in Shandong, China.^[4]
• The longest painting was created by a single-artist, Sun Lei, in Shandong, China and measures 11,997 metres (39,360 ft). It was completed in 1995.^[4]

Sculpture

• The largest glass sculpture is Fiori di Como by Dale Chihuly, found on the ceiling of the lobby for Las Vegas's Bellagio hotel. It measures 2,000 square feet (190 m²).^[5]

Textiles

The world's largest hand woven carpet is a Persian carpet made in Iran and completed in 2007.^[6] It has 2.2 billion knots, measuring 60,546 square feet (5,625 square meters).^[7]

See also

• Hermitage Museum – the world's largest art gallery
• List of largest buildings in the world
• Unfinished work

References