In some ways I prefer this one:
http://www.nauert.com/ransgt.htm

I may be too demanding, but it seems to me that static image maps like these really ought to display hovered-over names and other textual bits IN CONTEXT. I.e. superimposed over chosen targets; never leaving the page/ focus; and preferably also dimming the surroundings while selected person profile is on screen.

..achieved with a 'simple' image map? Oh, what a wasted opportunity for some nifty snazzy ultra-geeky tech! Well, the painting itself is pretty cool, me thinks so.. I'll let this one slide :)

Looks like a random list of people the guy picked out to include in the painting. I am surprised at the many people I did not see. But then again, maybe there is a pattern I am not picking up.

FOR the merge in the painting is a big enough deal. Besides it is not like the guy drew the whole thing on a computer where objects can be individually selected and brought out. This is an original hand drawn picture.

Some of the names are wrong, here's the real list translated from Chinese using Google:
Archimedes, Gates, Cui Jian, Lenin, Pele, Guan Yu, King Tut Pharaoh, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam, Chopin, Hepburn, Lei Feng, Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Norman Bethune, Gorky, Sun Yat-sen, Deng Xiaoping, Pushkin, Charles de Gaulle, Paul, Clinton, Peter the Great, Bruce Lee, Matisse, Margaret Thatcher, Churchill, Roosevelt, Hemingway, Elvis, Stalin, Leonardo da Vinci, Marx, Nietzsche, Robert • Capa, Shakespeare, Mozart, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Qiegelawa, Castro, Marlon Brando, Yasser Arafat, Monroe, Zhou Enlai, Washington, Lao Tzu, Mao Zedong, Lincoln, Marie Curie, Rodin, Picasso, Julius Caesar, bin Laden, Bush, Pavarotti, El Salvador • Dali, Empress, Jordan, Sharon, Chennault, Charles, Annan, Liu Xiang, Chi Pai-shih, Qin Shi Huang, Mikhail Gorbachev, the East of England machine, Mother Teresa, Yue Fei, Michelangelo, Sir Run Run Shaw, Bismarck, Tagore, Rousseau, Soong Ching-ling, Confucius, Van Gogh, Eisenhower, Lautrec, Keer Ni stay, Gandhi, Li Bai, Noah, Einstein, Tolstoy, Hans Christian Andersen, Shirley Temple , Tyson, Putin, Chiang Kai-shek, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Freud, Elizabeth II, Lu Xun

Original Link:http://baike.baidu.com/view/1408337.htm(In Chinese)

Wonderful.

I can't understand some of the peoples chosen – Li Bai and Noah...