Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report   

Video Credit: AsiaWire / Tsinghua University

This footage seen 15 million times shows a brilliant fine arts student sculpting Auguste Rodin’s most famous work – The Thinker – completely out of snow.

Shen Tianyang, 27, spent five hours creating the work dubbed ‘The Thinker Snowman’ on 6th January – which melted under the sun later the same day.

The talented sculptor currently honing his skills at Tsinghua University in China’s capital of Beijing began chiselling away at a giant pile of snow the morning after the city’s first snowfall of 2020.

Viral footage shows students surrounding Mr Shen as he recreates Rodin’s 1902 work Le Penseur.

A related hashtag reading ‘Tsinghua fine arts student builds The Thinker snowman’ was viewed more than 100 million times on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

This was not the first time Mr Shen made headlines for his creative work with the transient material.

In December last year, he sculpted Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo out of snow and it captivated the university’s campus.

Mr Shen told local media: “There is no special meaning behind this sculpture or my previous one.

“I study sculpture, so it was mainly for entertainment and fun.

“I wanted to sculpt something that everyone could recognise with one look.

“If this allows the public to have a better understanding of sculptures or art in general, that would be great, but I wasn’t thinking that far.”

Mr Shen revealed that he spent seven years trying to get into Tsinghua University.

He had previously been accepted to study fine arts at Beijing Normal University, but he left to redo his state exams many more times until he finally made the grade for arguably China’s most prestigious school.

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