Body Art

Body Art has been turning up on the skin of mankind for the last 12,000 years. Once reserved for religious ceremonies and initiations rites, today body art is the pre-eminent way that people of all cultures define themselves both to the outside world and to themselves.

The first known evidence of body art was found on a preserved human specimen discovered in the Alps in 1991. Iceman, because what else do you call a guy who’s been trapped in ice since 3300 B.C., had more than 50 tattoos covering his body—much of them used for medical purposes. Since then tattoos became a prominent way for regional tribes to express many of the different phases of life through their tattoos. Whether that be Dayak warriors who acquired a specific tattoo when they had “taken a head” as a headhunter or Ainu women in western Asia who used tattooing to announce that a young girl had begun to menstruate.

In the West, the body art that was so prevalent in Briton and the rest of Europe during the 12th century, disappeared when Pope Hadrian outlawed tattooing altogether. (He claimed the practice led to hedonism. I hope he’s right.) But then when sailors of Europe began to travel around the world in the 18th and 19th century, and didn’t care what Pope Hadrian hat do say, it became almost mandatory for them to get a tattoo at each stop as a mark of distinction. Soon these cool regional examples of body art were brought to Europe and the states and body art exploded into a worldwide phenomenon.

Today much of body art consists of this wonderful mixture of styles, cultures, and influences. The modern tattoo is often a combination of Celtic, tribal, street/urban, Maori, and whatever else the person might think is cool. It is the fluidity of body art as an art form that has made it so popular.