Xtreme Ink's blog: "Tattoo History"

Tattoo History... The following is a brief excerpt from Tattoo History: A Source Book, by Stephen G. Gilbert now available in print. A WHIRLWIND TOUR OF TATTOO HISTORY. An anthology of historical writings on tattooing. Each selection is accompanied by an introduction which provides background information and comment. The selections were written by historians, adventurers, explorers, anthropologists, criminologists, psychoanalysts and journalists,and include accounts of tattooing in the Ancient World, Polynesia, Japan,the pre-Columbian Americas, 19th century Europe and the US. Also included are interviews with contemporary tattoo artists and historians such as Ed Hardy, Lyle Tuttle, Tricia Allen and Kazuo Oguri. Tattoo History Source Book will be of interest to everyone with a serious case of tattoo mania. The following selection is from Memoirs of a Tattooist by George Burchett. [London: Oldbourne, 1958.] Copyright 1958 by George Burchett. Quoted here by kind permission of George Burchett's son, Leslie Burchett.George Burchett was London's leading tattooist for over 50 years. In the course of a long and full life he traveled throughout the world and assembled an extensive collection of documents, pictures, and books on the history of tattooing. Among his clients were actresses, doctors, judges, a bishop, and assorted royalty - including King George V of England and the late King Frederick of Denmark. If I were a scholar, which I am not-the"Professor" before my name being traditional, honorary and unofficial-I would love to write a history of tattooing. Very little has been published about it. I have gone to the trouble of having translations made of passages which interested me, in some of the works published by foreign scientists, and I have read all the books on the subject published in English. But, apart from Dr. W.D. Hambly's great work,The History of Tattooing And It's Significance, published in 1925, and a shorter study by Dr. Cyril Polson, F.R.C.P., Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of Leeds, in 1948, I know of no important book which appeared since the end of the last century. Tattooing by puncture, with a sharp tool or needle which introduces a dye under the top layer of skin, was first practiced, so far as we know, in Ancient Egypt. Clay dolls fashioned during that civilization are the earliest evidence of tattooing to have been preserved. I have seen two of these dolls, with their tattoo-marks, in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Dr. Hambly says there is positive archeological proof that body markings by puncture tattoo were applied to human beings as well as female clay figurines in Egypt between 4000 and 2000 B.C.

Tattoo sketches offer glimpses of early 19th-century Hawaiians By Timothy Dyke Special to The Advertiser In August of 1819, the French vessel Uranie berthed in Hawai'i after two years at sea. Jacques Etienne Victoire Arago, the official artist from the expedition, was one of the Westerners who came ashore at this crucial period in Hawaiian history immediately following the death of Kamehameha I. According to records at the time, Arago, who was charged with documenting the voyage in the pages of his sketchbook, spent most of his time interacting with Island residents. A juggler, musician, and entertainer, Arago seemed to have been well received by the Hawaiian people, and when the Uranie pulled anchor after three weeks to return home, the European artist had accumulated a large number of illustrations and portraits of the Hawaiians whom he encountered. Because the Uranie came to the Islands before the arrival of Christian missionaries, Arago's sketches provide an outsider's glimpse of Hawai'i prior to colonization, and selections from his collection of original drawings are on display at the Academy of Arts in a small, comprehensive exhibit titled "Tattoo Traditions of Hawai'i: Original Drawings by Jacques Arago." To view these drawings of Hawaiians in the early part of the 19th century is to consider the way in which art preserves and distorts history. There are at least three ways to view the Arago exhibit. First, a visitor may choose to see the work from a technical point of view. Before the advent of photography, the mission of a portrait artist would have been different than it is today. Where today an artist might use a sketchpad to advance an aesthetic or reveal an impression, the sketches of someone who worked prior to the invention of the camera served to preserve things as they were seen. As such, Arago's drawings are highly intricate and detailed. Rendered on paper with graphite, pen and ink, he draws the viewer's attention to the physical proportion and facial expression of his subjects. Backgrounds are mostly insinuated with a wash of smudged ink, while the characters in the foreground are drawn to scale with precisely articulated musculature and with clothing, hair, and tattoo presented as the artist must have seen them at the time. ORIGINALS VS. REPRINTS To look at Arago's drawings is to see the way he saw, and this becomes another way to assess his work. Visitors to the exhibit can view the sketched items as artifacts of history. The exhibit is curated in a way that facilitates this kind of approach. In several cases the work is displayed next to reprints of the same sketches as they were published in France at the time of the Uranie's return. In the published prints, the subjects are made to look less "native" and more European. Hair, for example, in the reprinted images is redrawn to appear fashionably 1800s French. By examining the hairstyle and manner of dress in the original drawings, viewers can see Arago's best attempt to show exactly what he found when he looked at the Island men and women as they stood before him. It's impossible not to see the hand of an interpreter when one looks at this work, and that adds another dimension to the experience of viewing the exhibit. When we look into the drawings we don't exactly see Hawaiian culture. Rather, we see a reflection of that culture. There's something akin to anthropology in all of this looking through. Careful viewers will want to compare what they see with what they know about Hawai'i during this epoch. Perhaps the drawings of Hawaiians by Arago will make some think of the descriptions of Samoans by Margaret Mead: The observer can't help but reveal something about how he or she observes. Perhaps the most interesting way to view the exhibit is to use the sketches in order to glance inside the art of Hawaiian tattoo. Arago draws his subjects so carefully that we can see the makaloa or checkerboard patterns as they existed on the legs of Hawaiian men. We see the image of a musket on the right thigh of a warrior. We see the repeated motif of goats which mingle with more traditional tattoo iconography. Because of the way Arago delicately reproduces these designs, we learn something about the culture and practices of the people. The goat and musket were introduced to Hawai'i by foreigners, and it is fascinating to see how the indigenous elements of culture blend on the skin with elements introduced from other environs. The Arago exhibit runs concurrent to the exhibition of Ansel Adams' photographs from Manzanar, the detention center where Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. The two exhibits work together nicely. Tattoo and photography both exist as art forms that have functional purposes as well as expressive ones. Both Arago and Adams focus their eyes on cultures in which they are visitors. Each artist displays a sociological aspect to art-making. The exhibit of Arago drawings is worth seeing in and of itself, but if visitors are inspired to see the Adams exhibit at the same time, such inspiration will be rewarded.