Welcome to ArtServe:

Art & Architecture
mainly from the Mediterranean Basin,
Japan, India & Cambodia

We had heard that the air of Baghdad engenders gladness in the heart
and disposes the spirit to joy and conviviality so that you will scarce find one
who is not cheerful and gay, even though he be a stranger
and far from his home

(Ibn Jubayr, Travels, for May/June 1184)

Zooming Images with the Panorado Applet:

Because images are getting larger (my latest are 10.2mp, taken with the Sony R1), I believe that Panorado software, especially its Java applet, could be of great interest in allowing users of this website an easier examination of image details. Large images on this site will be progressively converted to use this zoomable viewer, which requires Java v.1.4 or newer.

A demonstration of this versatile applet, showing two images on the same HTML page, uses the Marcus Aurelius in the Musei Capitolini, and a single full-size image of the superb Commodus as Hercules in the same museum.


The 2003- Iraq War and Archaeology

The Threat to World heritage in Iraq


and now see Milbry Polk & Angela MH Schuslter (eds),
The looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: the lost legacy of ancient Mesopotamia,
New York, Abrams, 2005


Recent Additions:

  1. Cambodia: the monuments of Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat, and surrounding temples - plus a large number of panoramas, especially of the bas-relief galleries at Angkor Wat amd the Bayon;
  2. Images of Rome, including a large number of churches, various monuments on the Roman Forum, the Arch of Constantine, the Campidogio and the Capitoline Museums - together with large panoramas;
  3. Images of religious architecture, and especially stained glass, from France and England;
  4. A second collection of images of Islamic Cairo;
  5. A considerablly augmented number of large panoramas to join those mounted in September 2004, from countries from Australia and Egypt to England, India and Japan;
  6. A considerable number of out-of-copyright, illustrated books dealing with art and architecture especially in Italy, Sicily and the Middle East;
  7. Substantial quantities of images from England (especially cathedrals), from Provence, and from NE Italy,
  8. Panoramas of monuments and sites in Austria, India, Italy, Japan, Sicily and Turkey - plus some view of the campus of the Australian National University; for information about the size and (sometimes poor) quality of these large images, see here;
  9. Images of monuments in Florence, Lucca, Pisa and Rome;
  10. Images of Angkor Wat, from Jacques Porcher, Les Ruines d'Angkor... (Paris 1890), and Lucien Fournereau, Les ruines khmers, Cambodge et Siam... (Paris 1890);
  11. Images added of Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Sikandra;
  12. 26 large panoramas of Italy, Sicily, Syria and Cairo that must be manipulated using Zoomify;
  13. Try out various presentations which use multiple zoomable hotspotted images;
  14. Try out the 1999/2002 panoramas, classified by country - large, small and zoomable;


For the purpose, techniques and organisation of ArtServe, see here.


Search ArtServe:Form: simple  advanced

 


  1. Countries: the majority of items appear (roughly "catalogued") in australia; austria; california; belgium; cambodia; croatia; denmark; egypt; england; finland; france; germany; greece; hong kong; hungary; india; Borobudur in VRML; Borobudur in still images; italy (but 16,000 images of Rome appear here); sicily; japan; korea; latvia; norway; portugal, russia; scotland; spain; switzerland; syria; thailand; turkey;

    Since some of these indexes are getting very large, here are the bigger ones laid out in text format: use the browser's "search" function to find what you need: australia; austria; egypt; england; france; germany; hungary; indonesia; italy; sicily; spain; syria; turkey;
    and for church art & architecture: austria: churches & cathedrals; england: churches & cathedrals ; france: churches & cathedrals; germnay: churches & cathedrals; italy: churches & cathedrals; spain: churches & cathedrals;

  2. Subject categories (sometimes defective: more will eventually be added) from the above, and mostly from museums, include:
    1. arms & armour in england, france, germany,
    2. ceramics in england, france, germany,
    3. choirstalls in england, france, spain,
    4. churches in england, france, germany, portugal, spain, switzerland,
    5. clocks & watches in england, france,
    6. cloisters in england, france, germany, portugal, sicily, spain, switzerland,
    7. coins in england, france, portugal,
    8. enamels in england, france,
    9. funerary material in france, germany,
    10. glass (currently both stained and vessels) in england, france, germany,
    11. hoards antique in england, france, germany,
    12. ivories in england, france, germany, portugal,
    13. jewellery in england, france, germany,
    14. metalwork in england, france, germany, switzerland,
    15. mosaic in italy, sicily;
    16. museums in england, france, germany, portugal, sicily, spain,
    17. paintings in england, california, france, germany,
    18. sculpture in england, france, germany, portugal,
    19. textiles in england, france, germany, sicily,
    20. tombs in england, england, france, germany, italy, sicily, spain,
    21. treasuries from churches in england, france, germany, , ,

    - and here are some site-wide indexes in text format (use your browser to locate what you need): altars; antique hoards; archaeological; archaeological museums; arms and armour; books and manuscripts; byzantine; ceramics; chapels; chateaux, hotels, palaces, villas ; choirstalls; church and other treasure ; churches; cityscape; clocks & watches ; coins and medals; columns and capitals; columns, capitals and cloisters; enamels; fonts ; fortifications; fountains ; funerary; furniture and woodwork; blass; ivories; japanese scrolls; jewellery; libraries; metalwork; mausolea; military and naval museums ; minarets; architectural models; mosaics; mosques; paintings; panoramas; parks and gardens; projectiles; pulpits; reliquaries; roman sculpture; sculptures: statues and reliefs; spolia; stereo pairs; textiles; walls, gates and fortresses;

  3. Surveys:
    1. Art History by artist, by country or by medium;
    2. Western Art and architecture by country, site or type;
    3. Mediterranean architecture (largely classical) by search, or alphabetically by site or by country;
    4. classical art & architecture,
    5. Italian Renaissance art;
    6. Italian renaissance architecture;
    7. All illustrations to the catalogue of The Great Exhibition (1851) by exhibitor, medium, and type;
    8. Town Planning in Italy;
    9. Antique Portraits;
    10. Maps for teaching;

  4. Prints:
    1. prints by artist, by subject or by technique;
    2. Prints by or of William Blake, Brueghel, Flaxman, The Great Exhibition, Italian printmakers, CN Ledoux, ornament by type, artist or country, Piranesi, Samuel Prout, MA Raimondi, Reemakers; French prints, French 19thC cartoons; Italian prints; School of Fontainebleau; The Emperor Maxililian's triumphal arch;

  5. Museums and galleries will be found throughout the Countries listings above;

  6. Architecture:
    1. Buddhist:
      1. Japan;
    2. Classical & Christian:
      1. Mediterranean architecture (by search) or alphabetically by site or by country;
      2. Diocletian's "palace" at Split; and prints of the site by Robert Adam;
      3. authors: Desgodetz, Philibert de l'Orme, Serlio (1537-51), Schinkel, Stuart & Revett, and Cesariano's Vitruvius;
      4. sites: Baalbec, Didyma,
      5. Ebersolt's 1913 Les Eglises de Constantinople;
      6. Rebecca Chandler: The Venetian Arcadia: Andrea Palladio and the reinvention of the antique

    3. Islamic:
      1. Egypt: the Moslem architecture of Cairo;
      2. Prof James A. Harrell: Decorative Stones in the pre-Ottoman Islamic Buildings of Cairo
      3. Prisse d'Avennes' plates of architecture in Cairo (with a summary of his life here);
      4. Turkey: Ankara, Beyshehir, Bursa, Istanbul, Konya;

  7. Sculpture:
    1. The Pergamon Altar:

  8. Some of my books and papers:
    1. The Classical Tradition in Art;
    2. The Greek and Roman Cities of Western Turkey;
    3. Spolia in Fortifications: Turkey, Syria and North Africa;
    4. The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages;
    5. Christian re-use of antiquities in mediaeval Italy and knowledge of the pagan past;

  9. Scholarly paper by colleagues:
    1. Cornelius Holthorf: Fra/gmen/te/d Megaliths (.pdf file);
    2. Prof James A. Harrell: Decorative Stones in the pre-Ottoman Islamic Buildings of Cairo

  10. Mediaeval materials: As well as in the countries listings above, see:
    1. A survey of manuscripts, and the Bamberg Apocalypse;
    2. Textiles: The Bayeux Tapestry;

  11. Embellishments: typefaces, frames and culs-de-lampe,

  12. Film: Riefenstahl's triumph of the will and olympiad;

  13. Trial multimedia presentations: see separate menu;

  14. Miscellaneous:
    1. fauna: and flora:
    2. Ashanti Gold Weights,
    3. Veteran and vintage cars (Canberra, April 2001);
    4. woodwork: at the Canberra School of Art;
    5. My poorly OCR'd version of sections of Vasari and Gibbon;
    6. First trials in anaglyphic stereo;
    7. stereo: kites in Canberra;


All comments and suggestions about ArtServe are welcome.
Copyright: We believe that this site conforms with copyright law in Australia, and we should be grateful if any unintentional lapses could be drawn to our attention. cf. also Christine Sundt's compilation of Copyright & Art Issues.