The traditional Japanese tattoos known as 'horimono' became very popular among the people of the 18th century or the Edo period. The most popular choices for the designs of the tattoos were the images from traditional water color paintings, picture books and woodcuts. Understanding the history and background is as important to experience and enjoy the Japanese horimono tattoos as it is to preserve their traditions.
The Edo period was like a period of Cultural Revolution for the Japanese. There were many changes that happened during that period at different levels of the society. A different class of people grew up out of the ordinary people of Japan, who found lot of interests in fashion, comedy, drama, novels, songs, and theatre. So, a unique and separate culture began to grow up.
As the society of Edo progressed, the ordinary people began to take pride in activities of fashion. Gradually, the Edo working class people began to imitate the heroes from the folk stories they used to read in the books (especially the picture books) and comics and other artworks as popularized by the famous woodblock artist Kuniyoshi. Getting highly impressed from these artistic works, the people began to tattoo themselves ritualistically and painfully with the designs based on folklore, such as dragons, Chinese lions, and giant snakes, and also with religious figures with the help of sharp needles for inserting pressed charcoal ink under their skin.
The people who carried out the process of tattooing were mostly the woodblock artists who simply had to exchange their wood-carving blades for long and sharp needles. With time, some of these people became so much involved with tattooing that common people began to accept them as tattoo specialists. This is how the unique Japanese traditional body art form, horimono was formed.
No comments:
Post a Comment