Body art: Tattoos

Q. So, art or disfigurement

A. As usual with these things it is a matter of opinion. Tattoos range from self-inflicted crosses and 'evil' across the knuckles to the most extraordinarily elaborate - though not always tasteful - polychromatic designs covering the whole body. There is currently (until September 2002) an exhibition on the history of tattoos called 'Skin Deep' at the National Maritime Museum in London, which gives it a certain cultural respectability, with much of the material on show being from the collection of the British Tattoo Museum.

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Q. Why did tats suddenly become popular again

A. Even nice girls do it these days - in fact, not to have a tattoo seems to be a sign of rebellion. It began to take off in the UK in the mid-1980s when a broad mix of youth and biker cultures, particularly those associated with the travelling and free-festival scenes - who often sported tats, frequently in pseudo-Celtic designs - began to make an impact on mainstream culture. Allied with the changing of attitudes which began to be felt after the late 1960s - largely as a result of the work of media-savvy tattooist Lyle Hutt, who decorated (mostly female) celebs and had his work featured in the glossies - it just became a pretty cool thing to do and it's gone on from there.

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Q. And a potted history of the tattoo

A. The word tattoo comes from the Tahitian word tatau which means 'to mark something', and it is first recorded during Captain Cook's expedition to the South Seas in 1769. This might suggest that tattoos originated in the Pacific region, but, in fact, they have been used by many cultures all across the globe, though it is rare among peoples of the darkest skin colours for obvious reasons (the Ibo of modern Nigeria did practice it, however) and it isn't common in China.

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Tattoos have been found on Egyptian and Nubian mummies dating from about 2000 BC and tattoos are mentioned by classical authors in relation to the Thracians, Greeks, Gauls, ancient Germans and ancient Britons. The Romans are known to have tattooed criminals and slaves. Pope Hadrian banned them in Christendom in 787, but it persisted in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, particularly the Far East and the Americas. Methods of getting the pigment into the skin varied in grislyness, from rubbing it into scratches to pulling a thread dipped in pigment along under the skin.

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Modern tattooing came of age in 1891 when the American Samuel O'Riley invented the electric tattoo gun. Because its introduction meant that good quality tattoos could be produced cheaply and relatively painlessly a rash of tattoo parlours sprang up all over the world and it initiated a standardisation of designs as pattern sheets were produced featuring many of the familiar images we still see today.

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Q. Why do it

A. There have been many reasons for sporting tats over the centuries, from tribal, religious or social identification to a badge of gang membership, such as that of the Yakuza of Japan or our own Hell's Angels. However, today the primary reason is decoration, and many experts suggest that this was probably always the case.

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Q. What about the West

A. From the time that they were banned they have always been treated with a certain amount of suspicion. (Even in the late 20th century it was not uncommon to attribute magical or evil properties to tattoos and their wearers. Think of the image of Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, with 'love' and 'hate' tattooed on his fingers, or the dark stories that took place within the tattoos worn by the eponymous illustrated man in Ray Bradbury's book.) In fact the Biblical book of Leviticus states that 'You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account of the dead or tattoo any marks upon you', which gave a religious authority to any disapproval of this kind of decoration.

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However, once Europeans began setting out on their voyages of discovery and colonisation they increasingly encountered cultures in which tattoos were an essential part of life, and by the 17th century sailors were beginning to adorn themselves with body art. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries heavily tattooed people were still the stuff of freak shows, however, and 'respectable' people didn't do that kind of thing, associated as it was with criminals and those somehow outside of ordinary society, such as the military and circus people. When, in the early 1960s, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases became associated with unsterilised tattooing equipment, the art reached its lowest position in the opinion polls (in fact, at the time, it was pretty much banned in New York State).

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When Lyle Hutt's work began to get noticed, however, the change in attitude towards the tattoo in mainstream Western society began.

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Q. So what happens when you don't want them any more

A. Methods of tattoo removal include dermabrasion (rubbing away the skin), skin grafts, plastic surgery and laser surgery. All such methods may leave scars. You've been warned.

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Q. So, what has all this got to do with drums and bagpipes and stuff

A. Nothing. If you're thinking of the Edinburgh Tattoo and suchlike, the word is derived, via a 17th-century term tap-too, from the Dutch taptoe, which meant to close the taps on the beer barrels. The original tattoo was a drum and bugle call telling soldiers to get back to barracks, and so, by extension, a tattoo became a military-music extravaganza.

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For more on 'Skin Deep' at the National Maritime Museum go to http://www.nmm.ac.uk/galleries/skin_deep.html

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Find the British Tattoo Museum at http://www.tattoo.co.uk/bthm.htm

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By Simon Smith