Portal:Visual arts/Selected image

Sand art, as illustrated by this detailed, large-scale sand castle, has evolved from simple beach play into a mature art form with competitions that push the limits of what can be done with sand and water.

Ansel Adams, whose The Tetons and the Snake River (1942, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming) is pictured here, is best known for his black and white photographs of California's Yosemite Valley.

One of 12 casts of The Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin (1888), located in Victoria Tower Gardens, London, England.

Illustration detail of a phoenix from the Aberdeen Bestiary, a 12th century example of an illustrated manuscript.

Sandpainting in the form of a temporary sand mandala, constructed by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the City-Hall of Kitzbuehel in Austria.

Paul Gauguin's The Yellow Christ (1889) is a quintessential example of Cloisonnism, a post-Impressionism movement noted for its bold forms and dark contours. The painting now hangs in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

Buon fresco, as illustrated by a detail of Michelangelo's decoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512), is a challenging painting technique involving the application of watered-down pigment to wet plaster. Painters are forced to work quickly to apply the pigment before the plaster dries.

John Constable's Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds (1823) hangs in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, thought to date from between 220 to 190 BC, is one of the great surviving masterpieces of sculpture from the Greek Hellenistic period. It now stands at the top of the Louvre's Daru staircase.

Frederic Edwin Church, whose Twilight in the Wilderness is shown here, was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was famous for his etchings of imaginary "prisons" as illustrated here by Plate VI: The Smoking Fire from Carceri d'Invenzione.

Matryoshka dolls, also known as Russian nested dolls or Babushka dolls, were seen as early as 1890. They are not a traditional Russian handicraft, although the concept of nested objects was familiar in Russia. The first set of dolls is said to have been made by a painter in the Abramtsevo estate inspired by a set of Japanese wooden dolls representing the Seven Gods of Fortune.

Ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world", is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints (or woodcuts) and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, the theatre and pleasure quarters. It is illustrated here by Hokusai's Red Fuji from his Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji series.