Pottery

The 20Th Century, Liberation And Reunification With Greece, (1898-2006)

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The first period (1898-1960) saw the renaissance of traditional pottery. Demand rose in step with the economic revival and the free movement of goods and money. The production of storage jars, beehives, basins, jugs etc. flourished. Small vessels, on the other hand, were gradually reduced and replaced by new mass-produced materials such as glass, aluminium and iron. Certain traditional decorative elements were preserved: stamping with a serrated wheel, incision with a small fine comb, and a simplified form of clay decoration used only on jugs.

The beginning of the second period (1960-2006) coincided with the post-war radical change in living standards in Greece, a country whose current borders were only determined in 1910. Crete, like other border regions, entered modern material culture. In 1960 the travelling potters stopped their annual peregrinations across the whole island and small pottery centres ceased production. The large centres, such as the villages of Thrapsano and Margarites, continued to make use ware such as water jars, basins, flowerpots and storage jars (pithoi) until 1980. From 1980 to the present day they have turned to mass production of traditional and other vessels for tourists or for use as decoration, most of which are exported to Western Europe where they are very popular, particularly pithoi. Production methods remain more or less the same, but not the clays and firing in the kiln.


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