Marble Carving – The Fanlights
Fanlights photogallery

Artistic objects of marble are visible everywhere in Tinos. Under your feet, when you are walking the streets, on the walls of houses when you look up, in public spaces – everywhere. All marble carvings are made with great love and fantasy. The unique marble of Tinos is white and green and was used in Buckingham Palace and The Louvre.
The longing of the Tinians, guided only by intuition and loving care, accomplished artistic masterpieces, using local materials. Even today, that from the island has been removed an important part of the marble ornamentation, the island remains an outdoor-museum of folk marble-carving. The main examples of folk art are the churches, the cemeteries (particularly the tombstones of Pyrgos and Platies), the coast-of-arms, the fountains, the village laundry - areas, the fanlights and lintels, usually semicircular or square, which decorate houses and churches. It should be mentioned that in 1845, on the island of Tinos, marble carving and architecture were important pre-industrial establishments that occupied more than one thousand workers and craftsmen. The fanlights are encountered over the entire island. They are the genuine creations of the folk stonebuilders of Tinos. Many of these fanlights have retained their "organic" position in the village and city houses still today. Such building ornaments, with decorative motifs of the most delicate art (birds, boats or “caiques”, flowers, fish, trees etc) are important examples of the artistic singularity of Tinos and are of great aesthetic value.
Tinos is the native place of some of the greatest Greek sculptors such as Yannoulis Halepas, D. Philippotis, G.Vitalis, and L.Sohos.
The artistic tradition of the island is kept alive and passed from generation to generation. Since 1955, the Art school of Pyrgos has produced a number of well-known artists, especially in marble sculpture. Major buildings such as the University of Athens, and the Archaeological Museum are among the several creations by Tinian artists.