103 Famous People in One Painting

The painting Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante was created in 2006 by Chinese artists Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An. Inspired by Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens, the painting features iconic figures like Gandhi and Napoleon alongside lesser-known individuals like Liu Xiang and Juan Antonio Samaranch.

This painting, depicting 103 historical figures in intricate detail, has gone viral online.

The artwork Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante was created in 2006 by Chinese artists Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An. Inspired by Raphael’s The School of Athens, the painting features iconic figures like Gandhi and Napoleon alongside lesser-known individuals like Liu Xiang and Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Alastair Sooke, an art writer for The Daily Telegraph, stated that the piece reflects the trend of contemporary Chinese artists adopting Western styles and themes. He described the painting as a “vision of Celebrity Hell.”

If you click the image, you can see the big version of the painting in a new tab.

The figures in the painting are arranged in five rows. For those curious, here is the complete list of 103 celebrities from left to right:

FIRST ROW (TOP) Bill Gates (Microsoft Founder), Homer (Greek Historian/Poet), Cui Jian (Chinese Singer), Vladimir Lenin (Russian Revolutionary/Statesman), Pavel Korchagin (Russian Painter), Bill Clinton (Former US President), Peter the Great (Russian Tsar), Margaret Thatcher (Former British Prime Minister), Bruce Lee (Martial Artist/Actor), Winston Churchill (Former British Prime Minister), Henri Matisse (French Painter), Genghis Khan (Mongol Emperor), Napoleon Bonaparte (French Military Leader/Emperor), Che Guevara (Revolutionary Leader), Fidel Castro (Former Cuban Leader), Marlon Brando (Actor), Yasser Arafat (Former Palestinian Leader), Julius Caesar (Roman Emperor), Claire Lee Chennault (WWII Hero), Luciano Pavarotti (Tenor), George W. Bush (Former US President), Prince Charles (Prince of Wales), Liu Xiang (Chinese Hurdler), Kofi Annan (Former UN Secretary-General), Zhang An (Chinese Painter), Mikhail Gorbachev (Former Soviet Leader), Li Tiezi (Painter), Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet), Dai Dudu (Painter)

SECOND ROW Pele (Brazilian Footballer), Guan Yu (Chinese General), Ramses II (Egyptian Pharaoh), Charles De Gaulle (French Statesman/General), Alfred Nobel (Swedish Chemist/Founder of the Nobel Prize), Franklin Roosevelt (Former US President), Ernest Hemingway (American Writer), Elvis Presley (American Singer), Robert Oppenheimer (American Physicist), William Shakespeare (English Playwright), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Austrian Composer), Steven Spielberg (American Filmmaker), Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter), Marie Curie (French Physicist), Zhou Enlai (First Premier of the People’s Republic of China), Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (German Writer), Laozi (Chinese Philosopher), Marilyn Monroe (American Actress), Salvador Dalí (Spanish Painter), Dowager Cixi (Chinese Empress), Ariel Sharon (Former Israeli Prime Minister), Qi Baishi (Chinese Painter), Qin Shi Huang (Chinese Emperor), Mother Teresa (Romanian Catholic Missionary), Song Qingling (Chinese Politician), Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet), Otto Von Bismarck (German Statesman), Run Run Shaw (Chinese Media Mogul), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

THIRD ROW Audrey Hepburn (Belgian-Born American Actress), Ludwig Van Beethoven (German Composer), Adolf Hitler (Nazi Dictator), Benito Mussolini (Italian Fascist Leader), Saddam Hussein (Former Iraqi Leader), Maxim Gorky (Russian Writer), Sun Yat-sen (Chinese Statesman), Deng Xiaoping (Chinese Statesman), Alexander Pushkin (Russian Writer), Lu Xun (Chinese Writer), Joseph Stalin (Soviet Leader), Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian Painter/Scientist), Karl Marx (German Philosopher), Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher), Abraham Lincoln (Former US President), Mao Zedong (Former Chinese Leader)

FOURTH ROW Charlie Chaplin (British Actor), Henry Ford (Founder of Ford Motor Company), Lei Feng (Chinese Soldier), Norman Bethune (Canadian Physician), Sigmund Freud (Austrian Psychiatrist), Juan Antonio Samaranch (Former Olympic Committee Chairman), Chiang Kai-shek (Chinese General/Statesman), Queen Elizabeth II (Queen of the United Kingdom), Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist), Li Bai (Chinese Poet), Corneliu Baba (Romanian Painter), Auguste Rodin (French Sculptor), Dwight Eisenhower (Former US President), Michael Jordan (American Basketball Player), Hideki Tojo (Former Japanese Prime Minister), Michelangelo (Italian Renaissance Sculptor/Painter), Yi Sun-sin (Korean Admiral)

FIFTH ROW Mike Tyson (American Boxer), Vladimir Putin (Russian Prime Minister/Former President), Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Writer), Shirley Temple (American Actress), Albert Einstein (German Physicist), Moses (Jewish Prophet), Confucius (Chinese Philosopher), Gandhi (Indian Leader), Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch Painter), Toulouse-Lautrec (French Painter), Marcel Duchamp (French Painter)

AND… Osama bin Laden (behind George Bush)