Russian Soviet forensic scientist M. N. Gernet argued that the word "tattoo" comes from the name of the god of the Polynesians "Tiki" - a watchman and protector, depicted with his eyes closed, smelling danger before it appears in sight. According to legend, he allegedly taught people how to tattoo.

In the history of mankind, the art of applying indelible images to the body has, according to various sources, from 4 to 6 thousand years. We adhere to the point of view that this skill is more than 5 thousand years old. As confirmation - the presence of a tattoo in the form of a cross and lines on the skin of the mummy of the "ice man Otzi" (Ötzi), discovered in 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps . The age of the mummy, determined by radiocarbon dating, is approximately 5300 years. . Probably, people pricked themselves with images before, but there is no direct evidence of this. After all, a tattoo is as changeable as human life. She disappears along with her carrier. The reasons for the emergence of the tattoo custom lie in ancient times, when unusual scars arose from accidentally received skin injuries, and somewhere, when ash or vegetable dye got into a cut, images remained on the body that may have distinguished their wearer as a brave warrior and a successful hunter. Under the primitive communal system, images on the body serve both as an ornament and as a designation of a clan or tribe. They indicate the social affiliation of its owner, and perhaps even endow it with a certain magical power. Over time, primitive tribes grew, uniting into organized communities, and drawings were already specially applied to the skin, which had a specific meaning within a certain group.

Various types of tattoos were practiced by many light-skinned peoples of the world. In dark-skinned people, most often, they were replaced by scarring. Both various tribes of Europe and Asia, and the Indians of North and South America were tattooed. And, of course, the inhabitants of Oceania.

In the history of Maori culture in New Zealand, a custom is known based on covering the surface of the face with a special tattoo. Such tattooed patterns, which for men covered the entire face, and for women only parts of it, were called “moko” and were made by incising the skin with a chisel. These amazing intricacies of patterns served as a permanent war paint, an indicator of the valor and social status of their owners. In the expanses of North-Eastern Siberia, the Chukchi, Evenks, Yakuts, Ostiaks and Tungus also knew the technique of tattooing their faces. It required the use of a needle and thread (previously made from animal tendons). The thread was dyed in black dye and, together with the needle, was pulled under the skin of a person according to a pre-executed pattern. Ainu women - natives of the Japanese islands, who once lived on the territory of Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, a tattoo on their face indicated their marital status. The tattoo is also associated with the so-called "transitional" rites, whether it is the initiation of a young man into a man, or the relocation from this life to the afterlife. In addition, among different peoples, tattoos were endowed with a wide variety of magical properties: children were protected from parental anger, adults were protected in battle and hunting, the elderly were kept from illness.

The Proto-Slavs used clay stamps or seals for tattooing. These peculiar presses with ornamental elements made it possible to cover the entire body with a continuous rhombo-meander carpet pattern, which was essential in the magical rituals of the ancient fertility cult.

With the spread of Christianity in Europe, the custom of tattooing began to be universally condemned as an integral part of pagan rites and a procedure that threatened the salvation of the soul. However, it was officially allowed to stigmatize all kinds of criminals with a tattoo. It is not surprising, because it was a custom with a long tradition, rooted in the era of slavery. The consequence of such a close connection with the underworld of tattoos was outrage towards this phenomenon from other social groups, the gradual extinction of the practice of tattooing in the following centuries and the formation of a bad reputation for tattooing among most members of the public.

But, ironically, when Christian missionaries in the 18th century went to distant lands to convert "wild" tribes to their faith, sailors from their ships acquired tattoos there as a memento of travel. Captain James Cook (James Cook) made the most significant contribution to the revival of tattoos in Europe. Returning from the voyage, he brought from Tahiti not only the word “tattow”, but also the “Great Omai” - an entirely tattooed Tahitian who became a sensation - the first living tattoo gallery. And soon, not a single self-respecting performance, fair or traveling circus could do without the participation of "tattooed savages" brought from other continents. Gradually, the fashion for aborigines begins to subside, and already from the middle of the 19th century, instead of them, Americans and Europeans themselves began to perform at fairs, covered with patterns of local tattoo artists.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the tattoo becomes extremely popular in the United States of America. In 1891, Irish American Samuel O "Reilly ( Samuel O ’ Reilly) patented the world's first electric tattoo machine. Thanks to the introduction of an electric machine into practice, the tattoo artist, on the one hand, made his work easier, making it less painstaking, on the other hand, significantly accelerated it, achieving greater productivity and, ultimately, receiving large incomes. Artistic tattoo parlors are emerging, allowing tattooing to move out of the zone reserved only for dedicated and privileged social groups, and the possession of such jewelry has ceased to be associated solely with the shameful application of the stigma. Performing an artistic tattoo has become a business, and this is a huge merit of an electric tattoo machine!

The twentieth century has arrived. The First World War created especially favorable conditions for the emergence of a real epidemic of tattoos in armies fighting on various fronts. The soldiers of the warring armies spent most of their time in the trenches, and during breaks between battles, which were sometimes long, they were engaged in decorating their comrades in arms. Under such conditions, the vast majority of people who, in a peaceful life, perhaps, would never have agreed to such procedures, willingly put their skin at the disposal of amateur tattooists. But this was done, most often, not for the sake of boredom. The reasons for such procedures at the front lie on the surface. Chief among these could be the fear that damage to the body, which will cause death, will make it impossible to identify the remains, and ultimately, to perform the last religious rite.

In the period between the wars, new masters and tattoo parlors appeared in the capitals of Germany, England, France, and the USA. Men and women from the upper classes continued, albeit in smaller numbers, to get tattoos on their bodies, and the decline in the price of a tattoo ensured its popularity among the lower classes and destroyed its appeal to wealthier people. The more ordinary people tattooed themselves in a crude manner, the fewer the exclusive tattoos that the elite got themselves. Officers and members of the middle class have since ceased to apply tattoos and considered it unworthy to be decorated in this way.

After the Nazis came to power in Germany and the introduction of laws authorizing state intervention in all areas of life, artistic tattooing is prohibited as a phenomenon that is contrary to the values of the National Socialist state. This period brought the well-known practice of humiliation of human dignity in the Nazi camps, where prisoners were tattooed for the purpose of identification. Here, too, a terrible form of collecting haberdashery products from tattooed human skin has developed. Members of the criminal organization "SS" were subject to obligatory tattooing, in which a blood type was poked out on their skin. After the Second World War, thanks to these tattoos, the work of international investigative bodies in the search for Nazi criminals who belonged to this organization was facilitated. All this further reduced the artistic value and popularity of the tattoo.

And only thanks to the powerful surge of youth culture of the 1950s-1960s, the main vector of which was protest, revolution, emancipation and liberation from any norms, the tattoo became one of the important symbols of this liberation, turning into an invariable attribute of subcultures. Gradually, tattooing through rock musicians, photo reports and films about motorcycle gangs was legalized in the media. The first tattooed person to be on the cover of an American magazine (" Rolling Stone, October 1970), became the artist and founder of the tattoo museum Lyle Tuttle (Lyle Tuttle), by that time he had made many tattoos to rock idols, including Janis Joplin (Janis Joplin). So, with the new realities of the time, a new generation of tattoo artists was born, whose creative ambitions and bold experiments once again raised the tattoo to the rank of art.

Tattoo in Russia

It is not yet known for certain how the image on the body was treated in Kievan Rus and in the later period of Russian statehood. In any case, we do not have documents on this score. One thing, it can be said for sure that the Russians saw tattooed people with their own eyes during the first round-the-world voyage of the Russian ships Nadezhda and Neva under the command of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky in 1803-06. Among the members of the team was a group of "well-bred people" who make up the retinue of N.P. Rezanov, who was appointed ambassador to Japan. One of them was Guards Lieutenant Count Fyodor Tolstoy. Tolstoy was a man of action, he lived with unbridled passions. He was contemptuous of the moral norms accepted in society, looking for any reason for a duel. During a stay near the island of Nukagiva, which belongs to the archipelago of the Marquesas Islands, "Nadezhda" was visited by the leader of the local tribe, Tanega Kettonov. Tolstoy's attention was attracted by the tattoo on the leader's body, which was literally painted with intricate ornaments, exotic animals and birds. Fyodor Tolstoy sought out and brought to the ship a Nukagivite, a tattoo artist, and ordered "to paint himself from head to toe." Snakes and various patterns were tattooed on the hands of the young count, a bird was sitting in a ring on his chest. Many crew members followed Tolstoy's example. Due to the extreme pain of the tattoo procedure (the skin was incised with a shell fragment and poured with caustic plant juices), the crew was disabled for several days. Kruzenshtern was indignant: the campaign schedule was disrupted, and each member of the team was on the account. How the life of the tattooed sailors of this campaign developed further is not known, however, Count Fyodor Tolstoy himself subsequently, in the aristocratic salons of St. Petersburg, at the request of the guests, willingly demonstrated, embarrassing society ladies, a “work of art” of an unknown master from the distant island of Nukagiva. By the end of the 19th century, Russian convicts exiled to Sakhalin adorned themselves with "Sakhalin pictures", thus establishing the tradition of tattooing as an art, closely related to prison life. In the Irkutsk province, a similar practice arose in the Alexander Central, one of the central hard labor prisons of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Meanwhile, in the capital of Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the tattoo becomes one of the symbols of aristocracy: the imperial court sets the tone for fashion. It is known that the last Russian emperor Nicholas II, while still a crown prince, during a visit to Japan, “acquired on his body” an image in the form of a dragon. The Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was also tattooed, according to some reports, incognito, he also made himself a dragon tattoo. The fashion for underwear drawings, mainly for oriental Japanese motifs, immediately captivated representatives of the world and bohemia. Already at the turn of 1906-07. in St. Petersburg to the Office of the Chief Medical Inspector M.V.D. the petition “On the permission of E.P. Vakhrushev to do tattooing " . Whether the first tattoo parlor was opened after that still remains a mystery, no documentary evidence of this has been found. However, the presence of this document confirms the interest and awareness of the tattoo among the citizens of St. Petersburg! But the further development of tattoo as an art form stopped after the October Revolution. Tatu immediately falls into the category of bourgeois "remnants of the tsarist regime."

In the Soviet period, the tattoo was persecuted due to the culture that had formed from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. XX century, a powerful asocial stratum (the so-called "thieves' community") with a clear hierarchy and distinctive signs in the form of wearable graphics. In addition to thieves' jargon, traditional elements of the thieves' subculture included tattoos that contained information about the type of criminal profession, criminal records, etc. During the Great Patriotic War, a huge number of people with a criminal past participated in the fighting as part of the penal battalions of the Red Army. After the Victory, a sufficient number of heroes returned home, wearing orders and medals on tunics, under which tattooed bodies were hidden. In this regard, the attitude towards the tattoo becomes more adequate.

In the post-war Soviet years, the tattoo made its way from the urban lower classes to the attributes of fashion, style and teenage "force" through urban folklore and thieves' songs. Not only punks and bareheads, but also low-conscious citizens from more affluent families made themselves "tatted" and "portrachki" (nautical tattoo). For example, the famous singer Iosif Kobzon, in order not to be considered a weakling and a coward among the yard punks, made as many as five tattoos on his body, and then, in his own words, brought them together.

During the Khrushchev thaw, the taboo was removed from the tattoo: a cult film for domestic tattooists by Georgy Danelia “Seryozha” (1960) was released on the screen, scattered into quotes. In the Soviet everyday life of the 1960s and 70s, the attitude towards tattooing did not change much either during the times of Vysotsky’s songs, who commemorated the tattoo in the style of a thieves’ romance, and during the maturity of the Leningrad poet-buzoter Oleg Grigoriev, who left behind a brilliant and minimalistic ode to tattooing and scarring: “ I can’t identify the one who was killed near the square, Vera by the tattoos, and Lucy by the scars. The tattoo, which appeared in urban folklore, already felt the leaven for the subsequent rock and roll ferment: Love, Alcohol and Obscenity as a puritanical reflection from the Soviet looking glass of the well-known Western formula "Sex & Drugs & Rock" n "Roll" .

in the USSR in the 1980s. there are grandiose shifts in the understanding of tattoos. The first colored rock tattoos appear, more and more people from the so-called rock underground get tattoos, thereby popularizing this art form. The center of this whole process is first Leningrad, and a little later Moscow. The history of the Soviet rock and roll tattoo is not much different from the foreign one, but, of course, it has its own specifics, because it developed with a delay of two decades. Much came from the West ready-made, information leaked bit by bit - through foreign magazines and videotape footage. However, the understanding that a musical tattoo is a protest attribute that frightens and annoys the layman, in many violent minds, arose by itself - based on the attitude in society to the camp painting on the body and the attitudes of Soviet reality.

First tattoo goes back to the early Paleolithic period, which there is a lot of evidence in the form of mummies discovered during excavations, on the body of which to this day traces of a tattoo are visible. Also, archaeologists often come across all sorts of cutters, needles and dyes, which, presumably, could be used for tattooing.

Since ancient times tattoo and scarring were endowed with a wide variety of mystical properties: they protected warriors in battle, kept the elderly from illness, protected children from parental anger, and promised women easy childbirth.

The Mayori tribes believed that the face was always in sight, therefore it was the face that was given special preference, applying all kinds of patterns and ornaments to it, serving as war paint, an indicator of valor, social status, or simply expressing, in this way, their individuality.

Herodotus also told us the story of how Histiaeus conveyed secret information to his son-in-law Aristogor by a “live” letter, through a slave, on whose skull the text was tattooed, which was subsequently hidden from enemies under the hair.

Japanese geisha using tattoos circumvented the ban on showing a naked body, believing that multi-colored patterns imitate clothes.

With the development of Christianity, the custom of tattoos began to be ruthlessly eradicated, considering tattoos to be a manifestation of paganism. The Old Testament clearly states: "For the sake of the deceased, do not make cuts on the body and do not prick letters." Among Europeans, the ban on tattooing lasted almost until the 17th century. But, thanks to Christian missionaries, who, according to ancient custom, brought a tattoo on themselves (as a reminder of the place they visited), tattoo kept afloat.

James Cook also made his indelible mark on the history of tattooing, bringing to Europe the “Great Omai” (a Polynesian whose body was completely covered with tattoos), who was considered a sensation, a living tattoo gallery. After that, not a single self-respecting performance, whether it was a fair or a traveling circus, could no longer do without the participation of a person covered with a large number of tattoos. As a result, the fashion for the natives began to decline, and tattooed Americans and Europeans came to replace the savages.

History of the tattoo tells us that, most often, tattoo used to determine social status, protection or belonging to any kind, but there were customs when tattoo regarded as punishment or punishment. So, for example, in the Japanese province of Chukuzen (XVI century), criminals, as a reprimand for the first crime, were put on their faces with a horizontal line, for the second crime - an arcuate line, for the third - one more. As a result, the hieroglyph “INU” appeared on the face of the unthinking criminal, which translates as “dog”. The Romans most often used tattoo to refer to their slaves. In the twentieth century, they tried to return to the stigmatization of especially dangerous criminals, and it was proposed to state their atrocities on their backs, through a tattooed text. But the sailors, on the contrary, depicted a crucifix on their backs, in the hope that in this way they would be able to avoid corporal punishment.

History of the tattoo in Russia, the contribution of Peter I to its development is not in last place. It was Peter I who introduced the mandatory numbering of soldiers by tattooing. A cross was cut on the soldier’s wrist, gunpowder was rubbed into the wound and bandaged, and the soldier’s personal number was also pricked. This barbaric idea helped to identify the wounded and the dead.

The next boom in tattoo history in Russia occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century, when it became fashionable everywhere in prisons to make tattoos that reflect one or another status of the prisoner or the reason why he went to prison (see).

Regrettably, but civilization has brought the ancient art of tattooing to the level of cheap consumer goods.

In 1891, the American Reilly invented the first electric tattoo machine. But for a long time it was not considered in demand. During the surge of youth culture in the middle of the 20th century, a new generation of tattoo artists appeared, thanks to whose experiments and ambitions, the tattoo was elevated to the rank of art.

Today tattoo reached a high level and huge popularity. All over the world, this art is developing along with art, new styles and trends appear (see), new application techniques and images. More and more people want to decorate their body and express their individuality, fortunately, there are plenty of ways and options today.

Tattoos appeared by accident. Noticing that after burns and cuts, which accidentally got soot or any paint, except for scars, bizarre indelible patterns form on the skin, people began to cause damage intentionally.

The art of decorating yourself with a tattoo can be considered one of the oldest. The history of tattoos goes back at least 6,000 years. The most ancient tattoos were found during excavations of the Egyptian pyramids. Mummies are about four thousand years old, but the drawings on the dried skin are clearly visible. The ancient Egyptians revered the art of tattooing and, thanks to trade connections, taught the inhabitants of Persia, Greece and Crete to decorate their own bodies.

According to researchers, tattoos appeared in the era of primitive society. It served not only as an ornament, but also as a sign of a tribe, clan, totem, indicated the social affiliation of its owner, served as a disguise during hunting, and was also endowed with magical powers. Initially, the drawing was applied to the body with paints. However, the images were short-lived, so there was a need for more durable patterns.

Mentions of wearable signs of ancient peoples (Gauls, Thracians, Greeks, Germans) are found in the works of Herodotus, Hippocrates, Xenophon and other ancient authors. Some peoples made cuts on the skin only to people of noble birth. In others, rich people painted the back and front of the body. The tattoo was even used for secret correspondence. To do this, they shaved the slave's head and applied a letter to the skin. When the hair grew, the slave went to the appointed place.

There is a lot of information about the customs of tattooing and scarring by the peoples of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Among the noble Altai Scythians, it was customary to put images of animals on the body - birds of prey, deer, rams, fish, etc., as well as scenes from legends and myths.

In Europe, they learned about the tattoo thanks to the navigator James Cook. In 1769, he brought with him from his wanderings a Polynesian who was completely covered with a tattoo. According to another version, tattoo art came to Europe from Australia, namely from the island of Samoa, becoming honorary, elite among the European nobility. On the islands of Samoa, a tattoo to this day is a sign of a serious position in society and is applied to the body by the same methods as many centuries ago. With the spread of Christianity, the attitude towards the tattoo began to change - it was forbidden, considering it sinful. They referred to the Bible. In the era of the Great geographical discoveries, tattoos in Europe became evidence of the primitiveness of man.

However, the tattoo has been used for many centuries, it was used to brand slaves and criminals. So, for example, in Europe, cheaters were given a sign in the form of a hexagon, poachers - in the form of horns, sentenced to galleys - the inscription "GAL", those sentenced to corrective labor - "TFP". In Russia, slaves were branded, those exiled to Siberia were marked with the letters "KT".

Representatives of the high society made wearable drawings in the form of symbols of power and family coats of arms. Ordinary people made do with unpretentious love pictures. Tattoos were the most popular among sailors: most often they put on the bodies the names and images of their beloved girls, crucifixes, which were considered a talisman against misfortunes.

In other countries of the world, in particular in America, India, Polynesia and Japan, tattooing was widespread. The inhabitants of these states generously decorated their bodies with tattoos, while the rich or high-ranking people had the most luxurious body designs. The greatest dawn of the tattoo culture was in Japan. Tattoos were worn by samurai and geisha (they were forbidden to show a naked body, so they made tattoos that imitate clothes, not applying ornament only to the face, palms and feet). Japanese masters were the first to offer three-dimensional images. Instead of ornaments and flat figures, they began to depict three-dimensional and colored mythical animals.

In North America, the art of tattooing, most likely, "sailed" through the Bering Strait along with the Chukchi. The Chukchi were friends with the North American Indians, and they passed the art of tattooing to Central and South America.

Of great importance were the color, location, as well as the drawing itself. For example, among the Maori, complex tattoos were made only to noble tribesmen of noble birth. The tattoos of this people were distinguished not only by their beauty, but also by their complexity. Ornaments formed into complex plots, but at the same time they were located strictly symmetrically on the body. Some American tribes applied the corresponding images during the war with neighboring tribes.

The inhabitants of the Polynesian islands made wearable drawings in the form of animals, which were the totem of the clan. Tattooing is a ritual, the violation of which deprives this process of its magical significance, so it was performed in secret by specially dedicated people. Do you know that a tattoo is also your guide to another world, a searchlight that illuminates the road to another world? However, over time, the original meaning of many images has been lost. Increasingly, they began to make decorative tattoos. With the help of a tattoo, a person seeks to stand out from his surroundings, to express his inner self.

It is difficult to say exactly when a person first applied a pattern to his skin. But it is known for certain that the history of tattoos is at least 60,000 years old. The most ancient tattoos were found during excavations of the Egyptian pyramids. Mummies are about four thousand years old, but the drawings on the dried skin are clearly distinguishable.

However, the tattoo appeared much earlier - during the primitive communal system. It served not only as an ornament, but also as a sign of a tribe, clan, totem, indicated the social affiliation of its owner, and in addition, it was endowed with a certain magical power. The reasons for the appearance of a conventional tattoo are also not entirely clear. According to one theory, this is a logical progression from natural skin lesions accidentally received by Stone Age people. Wounds and bruises merged into bizarre scars that distinguished their wearer from fellow tribesmen in an advantageous way, as a brave warrior and a successful hunter. Over time, primitive families grew, united into small organized communities, and marks were already specially applied to the skin, which had a specific meaning within a certain social group. It happened at the end of the Ice Age...

Historical roots are deep, tattoo geography is no less impressive. Various types of tattoos were practiced by light-skinned peoples around the world, and were replaced by scarring among dark-skinned people. Everyone was tattooed - different tribes of Europe and Asia, the Indians of North and South America and, of course, the inhabitants of Oceania.

It is the Indian tribes of Indonesia and Polynesia, where the practice of tattoos is continuously passed down from generation to generation, that serve as the best anthropological proof of the social significance of tattoos. Almost all aspects of the lives of these people are associated with tattoos - from birth to death - and, of course, there is no such part of the body that a local artist would not work on.

A tattoo among different peoples of the world was a symbol of slavery, chosenness, protected and carried encrypted information. So, on Egyptian mummies, archaeologists have found examples of the most ancient tattoo. They date back to about 2000 BC. The Egyptians tattooed only their pharaohs and the most powerful priests. The island peoples approached their gods with the help of tattoos. Ancient peoples used the tattoo in religious rituals, as an amulet and as an ornament. For example, the Greeks pierced encrypted tattoos to their spies, and the Romans stigmatized criminals and slaves. Moreover, the Roman emperor Caligula liked it when wealthy impeccable citizens made slave tattoos for the sake of entertainment.

The face is always visible. Therefore, it is the face that is decorated in the first place. The Maiori tribes of New Zealand wear mask-like tattoos on their faces - Moko. These amazing intricacies of patterns serve both as a permanent war paint and as an indicator of the valor and social status of their owners. According to local customs, if a dead warrior had a Moko mask on his face, he was awarded the highest honor - his head was cut off and kept as a relic of the tribe. And the corpses of unpainted warriors were left to be torn to pieces by wild animals. Moco patterns are so individual that they were often used as personal signatures or fingerprints. At the beginning of the last century, having sold their lands to English missionaries, Maiori, signing the "deed of sale", carefully depicted an exact copy of their Moko mask.

Almost all the tribes of North America use a tattoo: the more tattooed a person is, the more courageous and valiant he is considered among his fellow tribesmen. Our ancestors also liked to decorate their bodies with bizarre images of animals, which, according to their beliefs, were supposed to ward off troubles from the family. The ancient Indians used tattoos to mark the number of defeated enemies on their bodies.

In New Zealand and Polynesia, people who got a tattoo were revered as saints. The unbearable pain that they experienced in the process of applying the tattoo elevated them to the rank of martyrs. The drawing was hollowed out on the face, arms and legs with hammers with needles for several hours. Anyone who could not stand it to the end was considered cursed along with the whole family. In Japan, only the most respected and accomplished teachers of martial arts schools were allowed to tattoo themselves. In the Middle Ages, the Christian church tried to destroy the tradition of tattooing, considering it a barbaric heritage. In enlightened Europe, the tattoo originated from the stigma of a medieval executioner who marked thieves and murderers. For a long time in Soviet Russia, a tattoo was considered an attribute of a prison.

Ainu Japanese women with a tattoo on their face indicated their marital status. From the patterns on the lips, cheeks and eyelids, it was possible to determine whether a woman was married and how many children she had. So among other peoples, the abundance of patterns on the body of a woman symbolized her endurance and fertility. And in some places, the situation with female tattoos went to extremes: on the Nukuro Atoll, children born to non-tattooed women were killed at birth.

The tattoo is also associated with the so-called "transitional" rites, whether it is the initiation of a young man into mature men or the relocation from this life to the afterlife. For example, the Diak tribes from the island of Borneo believed that in the local paradise - Apo-Kezio - everything acquires new qualities that are opposite to earthly ones: light becomes dark, sweet becomes bitter, etc., so the inventive and prudent Diaks tattooed in the darkest shades .

Having changed after death, the tattoos became bright and shining, and this light was enough to safely lead their owner through the dark abyss between the earth and Apo-Kesio. In addition, among different peoples, tattoos were endowed with a wide variety of magical properties: children were protected from parental anger, adults were protected in battle and hunting, the elderly were kept from illness. However, tattoo magic was used not only by "savages".

In the 18th and 19th centuries, British sailors wore huge crucifixes on their backs in the hope that this would protect them from the corporal punishment that was widely practiced in the English navy. Among the Arabs, a tattoo with quotes from the Koran was considered the most reliable protective talisman. In all the above examples, the tattoo, one way or another, increased the social status of its owner. But in some cases it also served as a punishment. In the Japanese province of Chukuzen of the Edo period (1603-1867), as a punishment for the first crime, the robbers were given a horizontal line across the forehead, for the second - an arched line, and for the third - another one. As a result, a composition was obtained that made up the hieroglyph INU - "dog".

In ancient China, one of the Five Classical Punishments was also a tattoo on the face. Slaves and prisoners of war were also marked, making it difficult for them to escape and facilitating their identification. Both the Greeks and the Romans used tattoos for similar purposes, and the Spanish conquistadors continued the practice in Mexico and Nicaragua. Already in our century, during the First World War, deserters were marked with a tattoo "D" in Britain, in Germany they beat out numbers for victims of concentration camps, and what to hide, the same thing was practiced in our Union in regime camps.

But in ancient Europe, tattoos were in common use among the Greeks and Gauls, Britons and Thracians, Germans and Slavs. The Proto-Slavs, our ancestors, used clay stamps or seals - pintaders for tattooing. These peculiar presses with ornamental elements made it possible to cover the entire body with a continuous rhombo-meander carpet pattern, which was essential in the magical rituals of the ancient fertility cult. Unfortunately, with the spread of Christianity, the custom of tattooing began to be ruthlessly eradicated as an integral part of pagan rites, and practically died out. Moreover, in the Old Testament it is clearly stated: "For the sake of the deceased, do not make cuts on your body and do not prick writing on yourself."

In every major city today there are tattoo artists immersed in one direction or another, with rich experience, they are not just artisans, but researchers and keepers of traditions.

Consumers can choose among dozens of different styles. Grandiose international festivals and tattoo conventions are held. This is not just a way of self-expression - the tattoo is finally becoming an art again.

The art of indelible subcutaneous images is ancient, it has a history, belongs to different cultures and, according to various sources, dates back from four to six thousand years.

To date, the oldest tattoo is the “cross” on the body of the “ice man Otzi” (Otzi), discovered in 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps. The age of the mummy is approximately 5300 years.

Egyptian tattooed mummies are somewhat younger. They date back to about the 2nd millennium BC. e. Images of the goddess Neith were found on figures recovered from the Seti site in Libya.

Also, there is evidence of the existence of a tattoo in ancient China of the same period - approximately the 2nd millennium BC. e. Some historians believe that it was the Chinese that became the progenitor of the famous Japanese tattoo. Although clear information about this trend in art in Japan dates back to the 1st century AD. e.

By driving paint under the skin, refined geisha bypassed the ban on showing a naked body. Covering themselves with colorful patterns, a kind of imitation of clothes was created, making their owners even more sexy and seductive. At the same time, only the face, palms and feet remained virgin.

In ancient times, wearable images indicated belonging to a particular tribe and helped determine the social status of its wearer. So, in New Zealand, the hunters of the tribe applied permanent war paint. Which was also a sign of courage, valor and belonging to a family of hunters. Herodotus wrote about the Thracians: “Cuts on the skin meant noble birth; who does not have them is not noble.”

In Scripture, in the book of Leviticus (19:28) it is commanded to the Jews: "For the sake of the deceased, do not make cuts on your body and do not prick writing on yourself." The Nazis, after coming to power, also banned artistic tattooing, as a phenomenon contrary to the national socialist values of the state. The Nazis tattooed the prisoners of the camps in order to identify and additionally humiliate human dignity, especially among believing Jews. However, members of the criminal organization "SS" were also subjected to this procedure, on the skin of which the blood group was punctured.

After the end of the war, international investigating authorities discovered the Nazi criminals, including these small marks on their bodies.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Until they cooked Cook

In the 18th century, Captain James Cook brought back from Tahiti not only the "Great Omai" - a fully tattooed Tahitian who became a local sensation - but the culture itself, along with the name. Not a single fair or traveling circus could do without tattooed art objects. By the middle of the 19th century, the place of the natives in the representations began to be occupied by the Americans and Europeans themselves, covered with the works of already local masters.

By the end of the 19th century, tattooing had become so popular in the United States that in 1891 Samuel O'Reilly patented the first electric tattoo machine. With the advent of the apparatus, the speed has increased, the work has become easier, the cost is lower, and the income is higher. Tattoo parlors appeared, which no longer made the tattoo special, only for the privileged, on the one hand, but also destroyed the association with the shameful stigma, on the other.

After Cook, the term "tattoo" became generally accepted among various peoples and quickly spread throughout the globe.

The encyclopedic dictionary of F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron indicates that the word “tattoo” is of Polynesian origin: “ta” is a picture, “atu” is a spirit. "Ta-atu", "tatu" - a picture-spirit. In the "Dictionary of Medicine", prepared by the Belgian Piero Nisten, the term "tattoo" first appeared in 1856. And after Emile Litere introduced him to the famous "Dictionary of the French Language"

20th century

In the twentieth century, the First World War made the tattoo incredibly popular. Between battles, soldiers created images on various parts of the body. It is possible that in peacetime, many of them would not have dared to do this. But in the war, everyone thought about their loved ones and what would happen in the event of a sad outcome. No one wanted to go missing so that his possibly mutilated or torn body could be identified and brought home to his mother, wife and children, and they, in turn, sent him on his last journey.

The post-war popularity of crude tattooing among the lower strata of the population destroyed the fashion for subcutaneous tattoos among the elite. And even the middle class in every possible way hid objects of past pride under multi-layered clothes.

Only thanks to rock music, bikers and revolutionary-minded youth of the 50s and 60s, the tattoo began to gain incredible popularity again. They began to make films where simple pictures flaunted on the bodies of sex symbols.

For artistic photography, they began to resort to body art to create a brutal look. In 1970, the first tattooed man appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones. It was the master and founder of the tattoo museum Lyle Tuttle. Many rock stars in those days became the happy owners of his work, including Cher, Janis Joplin, Henry Fonda.

From Russia to Russia

The only message about wearable drawings in Russia was found in the Notes of a Traveler to the Volga by the Arab writer Ibn Fadlan in 920-921: “I saw the Rus when they arrived on their trading business and settled down near the Atyl River. ... And from the edge of the nails of one of them to his neck - it's all green: trees, images and the like.

In addition to this mention, a tattoo in Russia appears only in the XlX century, when the guards lieutenant Count Fyodor Tolstoy, in the parking lot near the island of Nukagiva, during a round-the-world trip, brought a local master to the Nadezhda ship and scored his whole body. His example was followed by many sailors, which "paralyzed" the team. Tattooing in those days was applied painfully by incisions with fragments of shells and pouring caustic coloring pigments. The crew was disabled. The schedule of the trip was going down the drain. The captain of the ship, Ivan Kruzenshtern, was indignant. In the future, this gave brightness to the stories of the count, when he willingly showed his body in aristocratic salons at the request of guests.

By the end of the century, the tattoo in Russia becomes a symbol of the aristocracy. On December 8, 1906, the St. Petersburg nobleman Evgeny Pavlovich Vakhrushev filed a petition with the head of the main medical department with a request to officially allow him to engage in tattooing. After a short correspondence, he became the first legal tattoo artist in Russia.

While the upper strata of the capital's citizens enjoyed their aristocratic marks, on Sakhalin, convicts launched a long process of tattoo transition from fashion to prison life.

They applied the so-called "Sakhalin pictures". Further, the initiative was picked up by the Alexander Central in the Irkutsk province, and after the October Revolution, the tattoo becomes "a bourgeois relic of the tsarist regime."

Until the end of the Great Patriotic War, the tattoo was associated exclusively with the asocial stratum, where thieves wearable symbols are both a “passport”, and a “dossier”, and “letters”, and “order books”.

After the Victory, many heroes returned from the penal battalions: on the clothes of the order and medals, under the tunics, a criminal past. This somewhat softened the attitude of the respectable population to the subcutaneous "painting".

In the post-war years, thieves' songs, Vysotsky's poems and the film "Seryozha" (1960) attracted the tattoo to the urban folklore of the creative intelligentsia.

By the 80s, the bodies of the Soviet rock elite were full of analogues of the Western recipe "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll". And local masters actively drew experience from the West. In 1995, the first tattoo convention took place in Moscow.

Royal "portacs"

One of the key tattoo artists of the last century was George "Professor" Barnett.

As a child, he heard the stories of sailors about his "anchors", but he was so impressed that at the age of 11 he began to practice on classmates. Two years later, for this he was expelled from school.

After 12 years of wandering around the world, having gained enough experience from the masters of Japan, Africa, Asia and other places, he returns to England, opens his own tattoo studio and devotes himself completely to his beloved work. His popularity grew so fast that he earned the title of "King of the Tattoo Artists".

His clients were King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King Frederick IX of Denmark, King George V of England, "The Great Omi". But his wife was his favorite client: “My dear wife, Edith, is the best model,” said George, who did not stop “beating” until his death at the age of 81.

Tattoos were on the bodies of respected personalities at different times. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte - the founder of the current ruling royal dynasty of Sweden - was the owner of the inscription in French "Death to kings!".

The king of Sweden and Norway, Charles XIV Johan, had “Death to kings and tyrants!” written on his chest. Nicholas II has a sword on his chest, the name of his wife on his arm and a dragon brought from Japan on his forearm. In the same place - below the elbow - Thomas Edison had five points stuffed, and Winston Churchill had an anchor. Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, wore the family coat of arms on his chest.

The English king Harold II was identified after his death only thanks to tattoos. Stalin had a grinning skull. True, the leader traditionally acquired it in places of deprivation of liberty.

Even Iosif Kobzon could not resist the inscription "I will not forget my mother" and five other tattoos in his turbulent youth, so as not to be considered a weakling and a coward among the yard punks. Then, in his own words, reduced.

Maximalists

In 2006, Lucky Diamond Rich was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most tattooed person in the world. His body is almost 100% tattooed, including his genitals, ears, and mouth.

The idea to cover his entire body with tattoos came to him as a child, but he put it off for a long time until he made his first: an image of a small juggling mace on his thigh. From then on, he gradually got more and more tattoos until they covered his entire body, including his eyelids. After that, he began to cover his skin with light tattoos over dark ones, as well as adding colors.

In second place among men is Tom Leopard. He received such a nickname due to the iridescent color of the skin under the skin of a leopard. A lot of people thought he was nuts, but he didn't care.

He spent twenty-eight years of his life serving in the special forces. After that, he realized that “everything is decay” and left the civilized world for the Isle of Skye to live alone in a hut, read books, walk through the forest on all fours and cover up shame only with a loincloth. His body was 99.9% covered with a spotty tattoo, fangs were inserted, which did not prevent him from traveling by boat once a month for a pension and food for the rest of his life.

The most tattooed woman in the world is 59-year-old Julia Gnuse. Her story is different from Lucky's. A rare genetic disease - porphyria - set the vector of Julia's life. It consists in the fact that the skin bursts under the influence of the sun. To hide her multiple scars, a thirty-year-old girl began to cover her body with images of characters from American television shows, films and animations. More than four hundred tattoos saved Julia from complexes and ugly scars.

The well-known Rick Genest, aka Zombie Boy, fell ill with the idea of death at the age of 15, after an operation to remove a tumor from the brain. At 21, he met Frank Lewis, who came up with a concept for him, and for himself a stable income for the next 5-7 years.

The realization of the creative ambitions of Mr. Lewis brought Rick worldwide fame, social fitness in the fashion world and good fees.

The first person in Russia to get a tattoo on his eyeball was a Muscovite Ilya Bomber. When applying such a tattoo, a needle is inserted into the eyeball and paint is poured, which subsequently spreads on its own. This method is not safe and there is always a risk of losing your eyesight.

However, for many it will be a surprise that this procedure is more than two thousand years old. It was carried out to improve vision. Roman doctors treated her with white spots on the iris. The physician Galen performed eye surgery as early as 150 BC. e.

Until the 19th century, physicians began to use ink needles to tattoo the cornea to recover from deformities and opacities. Various designs of needles for the procedure were made - a grooved needle, a cluster needle, the first eye tattoo machines, and so on. In the twentieth century, advertisements were full of the opportunity to change the color of the eyes in a similar way.

The injection method of eye tattooing was invented by Shannon Laratt and Dr. Howie. The execution was first performed on July 1, 2007.

Fashion passes, tattoos remain

With the help of the media, fashion trends around the world are increasingly falling under uniform standards. In particular, statistics on the number of tattooed people in a particular geographical point appeared.

More and more people want to "stuff" themselves with a sketch "like that guy." But fashion is a temporary concept, tattoos are made forever. Getting them out is painful, expensive and time consuming. As one familiar master said: “The surest way to get rid of this kind of mistake is an iron. Once “scalded”, it healed, the scar was polished with a laser and hit a new one. Fast, cheap and hassle-free." Tattoo removal is definitely one of the current trends. There are different methods - from excision of the tattooed area, cryosurgery and electrocoagulation, which leave scars, to the safest laser today.

The first attempts to use a laser beam to remove tattoos were made back in the 60s of the last century by the American physicist Theodore Maiman. He successfully practiced this procedure for five years. Further, laser technologies developed, changed and improved, but the risk of being left with scars was still great.

Modern methods are “ahead of the rest”, and the risks are minimized. Although burns, hair loss in the treated area, subcutaneous hematomas, and sometimes increased brightness of the pattern are sometimes encountered, getting rid of wrong decisions with the beam is a convenient and indispensable method.

“People often come to me to remove relatively recent work. Simply, because they are tired, - says one of the prominent tattoo artists in Russia, innovator Igor GIN Razenkov, - Most of them are girls. They treat tattoos like jewelry: today delicate flowers under a lace dress, a year later skulls for leather pants.

According to Raznekov, some time ago, the tattoo "performed certain functions, it was a certain status - it had to be earned," and this is by no means about prison pictures.

“Today, the tattoo has become ubiquitous, it has filled all kinds of niches and depreciated, the master continues. - Of course, I want more philosophy and style among the masses, not just jewelry, conditionally, for the summer. This is the quality of the client.

People with a busy life, he said, will never "drown in tattoos, but will complement themselves with them." There are many ways to express yourself, and this is another good opportunity.

As noted above, the tattoo is rooted in antiquity and for centuries has been a faithful companion of various classes, among many peoples, at all times, on all continents, in all kinds of cultures. At the same time, modern society still does not fully understand the tattoo.

And as you know, what we do not know scares and repels. That is why more and more people are divided into two extreme categories: whose skin is virgin and clear, and those whose bodies have less and less gaps.

“You will be surprised how many people in Moscow still come and ask if they will be mistaken for“ prisoners ”if they fill themselves with this or that idea,” Alexei Mokrov, head of the My Way Tattoo studio, shared with Reedus. “And this is despite the prevailing opinion, today subcutaneous painting is a growing trend around the world, including in Russia.”

At the same time, the tattoo, according to the entrepreneur, has ceased to be taboo in the minds of people. “We are actively trying to form the right idea about this direction of art, to convey the correct information, to recreate the cultural layer,” Mokrov explained. - Such ambitions led us to the idea of opening the first tattoo museum in Moscow.

The task is not only to educate the inhabitants of the city on this topic, but the main thing is to destroy the incompetent opinion.”

“Each client has his own motivation,” Alexey continues. - Our task is to provide all the necessary conditions for this at the highest level. A lot of people want to make themselves more beautiful in this way.”

At eighteen or twenty, he says, clients often want to express their protest: to parents, society, political movements, or to demonstrate their sympathies and hobbies; after twenty-two - twenty-four - the approach is already more conscious. “Although it happens in different ways,” adds the expert. “Sometimes it’s just expression, which I also have infinite respect for.”

Igor Razenkov, in turn, likes to repeat: fashion is quality. For everything else, he has a laser.

Introduction

For study, I chose the topic: "Studying the influence of tattoos on human life." This topic is very relevant, because a tattoo is a cultural phenomenon that is interesting to many. And it has a long, long history of origin.

The purpose of my research is to explore all the originality of the tattoo and unravel its secrets. I set myself the following tasks: - To establish the meaning of a tattoo on a person's life. - Learn the history of tattoos. - Describe the process of applying a tattoo. - Help you decide on a tattoo. - Talk about styles and types of tattoos.

Tattoo affects the life and character of a person.

According to researchers, the tattoo originated 7,000 years ago and the purpose of its application to human skin has not changed during this time: with the help of signs, inscriptions, drawings, a certain visual statement is created on the skin. Tattoo is today a very young direction in the art of our state, without rich and solid traditions. Our contemporary tattoo is heavily influenced by other heritage-rich cultures. In its historical past, during the times of the USSR, the tattoo was mainly political, army and prison in nature. Modern equipment (industrial machines), which came to us massively in the late 90s, allowed the art of tattooing to be truly raised to a new level.

I believe that a tattoo is an art through which a person expresses his inner world. It also changes his character, and can even adversely affect his future.

My work is aimed at studying the history and development of tattoos. Many young people think about decorating their body with a tattoo. And my work will help them with this decision, because this must be approached responsibly. I will try to write about which tattoo suits them best, what exactly it means, and where it is best to apply it. The world of tattoos is very interesting and diverse, and my work is aimed at its knowledge and study. The whole young generation, or those who are going to put on their body a badge of distinction, but still doubt their choice, my work should help. I am sure that you will highlight something new and interesting for yourself.

The history of tattoos

Tattoo is one of the oldest trends in fine arts. Yes, it is in art, contrary to popular belief that a tattoo is some kind of asocial mark, which is a distinctive feature of people who have been in prison.(2)

The history of tattoos is interesting, varied and sometimes mysterious and mysterious. A tattoo was born among different peoples at different times, and although there is not a large number of direct evidence of tattoos among different peoples for reasons that I think are understandable to everyone (a person’s skin after his death has one unpleasant property - to decompose and turn into dust), indirect evidence still exist. The art of decorating yourself with a tattoo can be considered one of the oldest. The history of tattoos goes back thousands of years. The first samples of tattoos were found during excavations of the Egyptian pyramids. On the mummies discovered there, which are at least 4 thousand years old, tattoos are clearly visible. According to researchers, tattoos appeared in the era of primitive society. Initially, a drawing endowed with certain properties (for scaring away evil spirits, for successful hunting, etc.) was applied to the body with paints. However, the images were short-lived, so there was a need for more durable patterns. The wearable signs of the most ancient people performed rather informative (indicated the sign of the tribe, clan, social status of the owner, etc.), protective (against diseases, troubles, misfortunes, etc.) and magical than decorative functions. The location and size of the depicted varied depending on existing traditions and customs, as well as on the imagination of the person himself. (3)

In ancient Mesopotamia, it was believed that the female body without a tattoo is ugly. In Japan, geisha had no right to remain naked and very often only their face, arms and legs remained untattooed. During the Middle Ages, fallen women were branded with signs on the body, the most famous of them is the lily on the left shoulder, common in France during the time of Louis lV (and, by the way, sung in many novels and songs).

Since its inception, the tattoo has had a positive meaning. However, with the spread of Christianity, the attitude towards it began to change - it was forbidden, considering it sinful. They referred to the Bible, in which it is forbidden to put any marks on the body (Leviticus, 19:28). So, in most European countries, a ban was imposed on tattooing. And he was so severe that tattooing was not practiced among Europeans until the 18th century. And they were brought to Europe by none other than Christian missionaries who spread the faith in distant countries. Also, a great contribution to the new development of tattoos was made by the famous traveler James Cook, who, returning from a voyage in 1769, brought from Tahiti not only the word “tattoo” itself, but also the “Great Omai”, a completely statuesque Polynesian who became a sensation - the first live tattoo - gallery. (6)

In the history of tattoos, the time is vividly imprinted when men and women who demonstrated and popularized the tattoo, appearing in shows at fairs and circuses, and for greater attractiveness invented

fantastic stories about the appearance of these ornaments on their bodies. They surprised and attracted fans with symbolic and often sexual stories that made hair stand on end. They talked about forced tattooing, about the threat to their lives, a terrible fate, and other things that were very far from reality. For all their fantasticness and improbability, however, these stories were based on a very strong psychological basis, did not lose their charm then and have not lost their charm today. These people understood that there must be a reason why they got tattoos, that their tattoos must be explained to those who paid to see them, that a tattoo is publicly frowned upon until it is colored by its history, that the history must be unexpected for the audience.(8)

By the end of the 19th century, the fashion for aborigines subsided, instead of them, Americans and Europeans themselves began to perform at fairs. For example, a certain Lady Viola flaunted portraits of six American presidents, Charlie Chaplin and many other celebrities, causing the enthusiasm of the crowd for our century. ... But, although the townsfolk loved to stare at the decorated circus performers, they themselves were in no hurry to get tattooed. It was the privilege of sailors, miners, foundry workers and other similar "trade unions" who used the tattoo as a symbol of brotherhood, solidarity, loyalty to traditions. The modern popularity of tattoos in the West owes a lot to them. At the same time, they are also responsible for the creative stagnation in Western tattooing in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The meager imagination and dubious artistic taste of the main customers led to the limitation of the tattoo "repertoire" to marine themes, vulgar sentimentality and banal aphorisms. (7)

Sadly, the fact remains that civilization has reduced ancient art to the level of cheap consumer goods. The lack of demand for decent products discouraged tattoo artists, depriving them of an incentive for creativity and new stylistic developments.

But it was then, in 1891, that the American O "Reilly invented an electric tattoo machine that replaced all kinds of home-made tools and devices. But even technological progress did not move things off the ground. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, both Europe and America went with a standard set uncomplicated popular prints.

And only thanks to a powerful surge of youth culture in the 50s - 60s, a new generation of tattooists appeared, whose creative ambitions and bold experiments once again raised the tattoo to the rank of art. They borrowed extensively from traditional images of other cultures - the Far East, Polynesia, American Indians - creating exciting hybrids, new styles, schools and trends. Thus began a new, modern stage of a thousand-year-old tattoo.

If you carefully study the history of tattoos, you will notice that in five and a half thousand years, not much has changed. And the Haitian word "mark" still accurately describes the essence of the tattoo.

Drawings on the body in the modern world still indicate the social status of the owner. People still apply tattoos for magical purposes, although this phenomenon is now an order of magnitude less common than in ancient times, when most of the drawings on the body had a mystical meaning.

The only new trend that appeared only in the twentieth century - and even then in the second half - is a tattoo as a protest. Never before has a man been able to get a tattoo in protest against the society in which he lives. And this is good news.

So, with the help of a tattoo, a person seeks to stand out from his surroundings, to express himself. Drawing a certain pattern on the body is a way of expressing the inner "I". Maybe that's why there are so many creative people among tattoo owners.