Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/9

24 June 2005

 * …that syncretism between the cultures of Classical Greece and Buddhism between the 4th century BC and 7th century AD produced Greco-Buddhist art, which included the first visual representations of the Buddha?
 * …that Vorticism, considered to be the only significant British artistic movement of the early twentieth century, lasted less than three years?
 * …that cycloramas, a popular 19th century entertainment, were cylindrical paintings of picturesque views designed to provide a viewer, standing in the middle of the cylinder, with a 360° view of the painting?
 * …that Irving Stone, author of the 1961 biographical novel about Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy, learned to carve marble in preparation for his book?