Tank crew standing in front of M-4 tank, Ft. Knox, Kentucky, June, 1942. (Alfred Palmer/OWI/LOC)

Artist Robert Mickelson is an expert sculptor whose medium of choice happens to be glass. There's something so pure and serene about glass. Perhaps it's the material's transparency coupled with its fragility. Whatever it may be, Mickelson knows how to accentuate the element's most appealing qualities. Each of his life-like sculptural pieces exude realism with a refined quality.

Scott Bisson of Quantum Creative Glass was first fascinated by the medium in high school chemistry class, at age seventeen. Since then, he has studied with five different masters, as well as at the world renowned Pilchuck School with Robert A. Mickelson, and has met and observed Dante Marioni, William Morris, and Peter Novotney.

Born in Tokyo, Dusseldorf-based artist Ramon Todo creates beautiful textural juxtapositions using layers of glass in unexpected places. Starting with various stones, volcanic rock, fragments of the Berlin wall, and even books, the artist inserts perfectly cut glass fragments that seem to slice through the object resulting in segments of translucence where you would least expect it.

Members of the Women's Fire Brigade with their Chief Officer, March 1916. (Photo by Topical Press Agency)

A Ukrainian serviceman is seen at his position on the front line in Krasnogorivka near Donetsk, Ukraine, August 12, 2016. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

A Shiite fighter from the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) patrols in the village of Ayn Nasir, south of Mosul, on October 29, 2016, after recapturing it from Islamic State group jihadists in an ongoing operation to retake the city of Mosul. Iraqi paramilitary forces launched an operation to cut the Islamic State group's supply lines between its Mosul bastion and neighbouring Syria, opening a new front in the nearly two-week-old offensive. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)