Shipowners and figureheads of 1821
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Title
Shipowners and figureheads of 1821
List Of Authors
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Spatial Coverage
Subject - keywords
Date Issued
2021
Abstract
The figurehead is the personified soul of the ship that chases away evil, protects the crew, brings wealth and bestows victories in time of war. The modern Greek figurehead appeared in the middle of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, born out of the new economic and social climate under Ottoman rule. Inextricably linked to the naval struggle for Independence, the figureheads, which depicted divine, mythical or historical heroic figures, symbolise the continuation of Hellenism from antiquity to 1821 and were raised as symbols of liberation from the Turkish yoke, while representing common figures, one-piece female figures or busts. Examining the different categories (from Hydra, Spetses and Galaxidi) of the surviving figureheads, along with their written sources and depictions in art, Professor Petros Themelis offers a comprehensive study of the modern Greek figurehead in the context of European and modern Greek shipping as well as modern Greek and European art. The figureheads came to an end with the predominance of iron steamships. However, the “figures”, as the sailors called the figureheads, that have survived are a living testimony of folk culture.
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Data sets
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Bibliographic Citation
Number Of Pages - Duration
112
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All Rights Reserved
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Position: 8466 (19 views)