The art of tattooing took a long time to find its place in the world despite its powerful potential. Hidden away in geographically secluded subcultures, tattooing idled away quietly for millennia, unaware of the wealth of artistic richness awaiting just outside its cultural isolation. It's rather mystical allure beckoned to travelers and traders, yet its taboo qualities and slightly intimidating methods were enough to keep it hidden away from all but the most daring.
Eventually, globalization prevailed and tattooing took root in Western societies, where in the early Twentieth Century few innovators found ways of using electricity to drive a needle fast enough that it could be used as a pen. Within these decades they ignored out this process to an extent that images could be tattooed into the skin with great accuracy.
Although there were precious few practitioners in the early Twentieth Century who had any kind of artistic background before becoming tattooists, those who did formulated the essential principles of placement on the body, flow of design, etc., that other tattooists soon adopted into the basic look of their work. The core of these design principles was largely borrowed from classic tattooing styles long in use in Japan and the Pacific Islands, but to the tattooist of the Western World, these were new ideas. It was the beginning of a long process of discovery.
Generations passed, and the craft was refined to the point where there were enough attractively tattooed people walking around in the world to support a number of publications which featured the latest styles in skin art. Inevitably, these magazines and books ended up in the hands of a more and more diverse assortment of artists, inspiring them and enabling many new styles of art to make their way onto skin. These innovators were able to meet and exchange ideas and techniques at tattoo conventions, which at that stage were becoming large and well-organized events.
Tattooing has evolved into a full-fledged artistic medium that is plugged into a global network and applied with an endless variety of sophisticated techniques. Nurtured in an environment of economic prosperity, combined with freedom of expression and the diverse influence of thriving subcultures worldwide, contemporary tattooing is arguably one of the fastest and most explosive renaissances ever known in the history of art. As we continue to mix and match our arts and technologies at a faster pace, it is not difficult to envision even more exciting and innovative developments in the near future for tattoos.
Currently, the state of the art of tattooing is such that basically any image can be tattooed on skin with almost photographic realism. Although these techniques are used for portraits and wildlife tattoos, they can be applied to any kind of image. One of the few real limitations we're facing now is in our understanding of what exactly makes a tattoo design successful, of what combination of elements will have the greatest visual impact while having the most flattering effect on the body that wears it.
With the wide variety of different styles being explored, it shouldn't be hard to understand these limitations and use them to our advantage. Each style of tattooing has some particular artistic direction that it explores more closely than other styles. Japanese tattooing has always been about flow and placement on the body. Traditional American tattooing explores the language of the line, seeking ways to say the most with the least. Tribal tattoos simplify the compositional equation and zeros in on positive/negative relationships that balance between the tattoo and the skin in between. Biomechanical and or Organic tattooing place heavy emphasis on the illusion of depth in the design and placement for it to work best. Black and gray tattooing explores the subtleties of the whole range from dark to light.
With the tattoo profession being gradually taken over by experienced artists, we're seeing many modern illustrative styles being tattooed, from comic book art to futuristic computer-generated designs. Classic painters. Such as Van Gogh and Dali, are being painstakingly interpreted on skin alongside modern masters such as Alex Grey and H.R. Ginger. In less than a century, tattooing has evolved to encompass every conceivable style of art.
Much of this was made possible by the technical evolution of the tattooing process. Before electricity, the ink had to be literally hammered in, leaving little opportunity for precision or subtlety. With the invention of the electric tattoo machine, all of the things we see in skin today were made possible.
If you look through enough books of tattoos in the early part of the 20th Century, you'll occasionally see a portrait done with fine liners and delicate shading. This wasn't the typical way of doing things at the time, though, and most of the work you see from back then is somewhat rough. A lot of this can be blamed on the art form's ghetto status, which scared away most of the promising artists who may have otherwise been attracted to it. This hard to get "real art" prices for tattoos, which meant that pure quantity was the only way to keep a tattoo shop running. FAST was the name of the game, which kept the work simple and crude.
The new artistic ideal of slowing down and working more carefully has helped bring about all kinds of advances in machines, pigments, tubes and all sorts of other tattooing essentials. The modern electric tattoo machine, although basically unchanged for over 100 years, has been refined in many aspects and now can be tuned to puncture the skin in exactly the artist's desired manner. In addition, tattooing methods have recently benefited from ergonomics, the science of making equipment that fits the user. Ergonomics have brought about developments in practical aspects of tattooing including machine weight, the shape of the tube grip, modern massage tables and adjustable chairs; these innovations have made both the artist and client more comfortable and allow for more productive sessions.
Pigment has also evolved in exciting ways. Almost every color in the spectrum is now available from many different suppliers using numerous different kinds of pigment, many of them tried-and-true in skin for decades, others brand-new on the market, promising but without those years of having been used and proven. Many of these new pigments are thinner and much easier to use than traditional flask powder pigments, which not only make the job easier but also make possible sharper detail and more control over subtlety. Artists can use all these different pigments to mix their own custom colors, making their palette unique.
Despite all these exhilarating developments, tattooing is not yet out of the ghetto. Even with the new TV programs giving tattooing a more positive spin, popular culture has been painting an ugly and simple-minded image of the craft for such a long time now it's become hard for the public to accept the idea of a new, improved tattoo trade. Unfortunately, this reputation is not totally undeserved, and the bad examples stand out much more than the good ones. If we want the reputation of tattooing to be cleared of this burden and see it truly embraced as a fine art, we need to accept the responsibility of not living down to these expectations, either artistically or ethnically, and encourage environment of growth and change amongst ourselves and other artists.
