![]() ![]() This part was left blank in order to avoid the tattoo being seen while wearing a kimono. The munewari covered the upper body aside from a strip that went from the collar line down to the navel. This ink bodysuit became popular after the Edo period and the most common pattern, the munewari, resembled an unbuttoned shirt. While in the West tattoos were, and still are, usually single pieces on different sections of the skin, the traditional Japanese style was a single tattoo that occupied most of a person’s body. ![]() ![]() The 1910’s novel The Tattooist by Tanizaki Jun’ichirô remarked that “visitors to the pleasure quarters of Edo preferred to hire palanquin bearers who were splendidly tattooed Among those so adorned were not only gamblers, firemen, and the like, but members of the merchant class and even samurai.” Firefighters, for example, would ask for protection from the dangers of their jobs by covering their bodies with water symbols such as dragons, snakes, and carps. Tattoos were a way to show a person’s commitment to a loved one by inking their name on the skin, to atone for past mistakes, or to ask the gods for good blessings or forgiveness. Some things just never go out of style.”ĭespite frequent tattoo-bans enforced by the government, in the nineteenth century tattoos became a fashion statement for the Japanese working class. I would tie this to the universal need for humans to decorate themselves evidenced in the earliest mummified remains and cave paintings as well as the lasting appeal of certain images and ideas over centuries. While tattoos were exploiting the designs and colors of the woodblock prints, ukiyo-e artists began to portray tattooed artists, courtesans, and actors among their subjects. According to Taki Kitamura, a tattoo artist and owner of State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose, California, “the popular designs of today are the popular designs of the Edo period. Woodblock and tattoo artists began to draw inspiration from each other. The ukiyo-e not only influenced Western art by contributing to the birth of Japonisme but also the Japanese tattoo culture that took inspiration from the prints’ designs and themes. Characteristics of the ukiyo-e were the bold and flat colors, aerial perspective, and clear, stark outlines. The images were initially sketched by the artist, carved into a woodblock, inked, and then printed on paper. These prints flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and the subjects depicted ranged from warriors, beautiful women, and kabuki actors, to natural elements such as flowers and animals, and folk stories. To become a horishi, one had to serve a period of apprenticeship, usually several years, with a master.ĭuring the Edo period (1603-1868 CE), the designs that were used by Japanese tattoo artists were inspired by traditional woodblock prints, the ukiyo-e, literally pictures from the floating world. ![]() It was a time-consuming and painful process that could be performed only by a horishi, a tattoo artist. Traditionally, tattoos were made by hand (tebori) by piercing the skin with metal needles inserted into wooden handles. The former used to describe the practice of tattooing criminals as a form of punishment (reported to be practiced as early as the fifth century CE by the Nihon shoki, The Chronicles of Japan), while the latter was used for those who freely decided to get inked. van Gulik, irezumi and horimoto used to differ in meaning. The Japanese words for tattoo are irezumi, literally inserting ink, and horimono, to puncture an object. The history of Japanese tattoos is not only connected to Japanese art in various forms (theatre, woodblocks, and literature) but also to the socio-political changes that have occurred in Japan through the centuries. Yet, across the centuries, Japanese society fluctuated between accepting tattoos, banning the practice, and using certain symbols as a way to brand and identify criminals. The tattooed faces of the haniwa showed that altering one’s appearance by inserting pigments into the skin was a commonly accepted practice between the third and sixth century CE. In East Asia, the earliest evidence of tattoos was found on haniwa, a type of Japanese clay figurines that were placed on top of funeral mounds or outside tomb areas for protective purposes. Whether for fashion, religious, or social reasons, tattoos have been part of human history for thousands of years. ![]()
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