The Origin of Pictorial Tattooing

Pictorial tattoos first appeared after the Horeki era (1751-1764) (Iizawa; 1973, Nakano; 199u, Tamabayashi; 1956, Van Gulik; 1982, Yoshioka;1996). The first stage of the pictorial tattoos was relatively small, and the designs were family crests or evil images such as a severed human head. Even though people began to have a couple of tattoos on their body, each piece was scattered at random, not unified.

The development of the art ofukiyo-echanged the style of Japanese tattoo. The ukiyo-eare pictures of "the floating world," mainly depicting the landscape, people's daily life including entertainment such as kabuki-plays or the pleasure quarters. The images were first illustrated in color prints. In the 1650's woodblock printing began to translate the ukiyo-e into widely available books (Smith, 1988).Forrer (1988) and Hillier (1981) point out the difference between Western drawings and Japanese counterparts. While Western drawings were used in a wide range of materials, Japanese drawings were invariably executed in brush and ink. The limited materials in Japan led to the development of sumie or suibokuga, monochrome ink paintings, and influenced the revival of tattooing. Later, colors were imported from foreign countries.

Japanese tattooing was inspired by traditional arts. The brush would be altered to a bundle of tattooing needles. Tattooing became the popular art among the lower class.The Chinese legendary story, the Suikoden, the "Water Margin", affected the tattoo designs. The Suikoden described the adventures of legendary heroes. It was first translated from Chinese to Japanese by Okajima Kanzan in 1757. Many artists described the Suikoden in different versions. Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the ukiyo-e artist, illustrated the Suikoden in 1827 and it gained popularity among townspeople. His work is still used as the basis of tattoo designs today. Kuniyoshi's warrior-prints inspired the development of the full body tattoo.

The heroes' bravery and spirit fascinated many people in those days. The characters of the heroes in the Suikoden are full of chivalry. They were not malicious. They robbed to save the weak from evil. Therefore, many Edo citizens' spirit of iki perhaps shared the Suikoden heroes. The commoners admired those heroes. The most popular figure in the Suikoden was Kyumonryu Shishin, who has tattoos of nine dragons. In competition with each other. Many townspeople had dragon tattoos like the Shishin's. Besides, the image of a dragon was considered to summon water, and was popular among firemen (Tamabayashi, 1956).

There were many fires in Edo city through the Tokugawa period (Nishiyama, 1997), and the system of firemen was well developed. That is why the design of the dragon is often seen. There is no doubt that Kuniyoshi's illustrations of the Suikoden had an impact on tattoo designs. Tattooing had a great vogue among the lower orders in Japan during the early nineteenth century, and Kuniyoshi's warrior-prints were extensively used as designs for this minor art (Robinson, 1961: 21).

There are two reasons why the Japanese full body tattoo was developed: the existence of sumie or, monochromatic ink paintings, and the establishment of clothing fashion. Before the appearance ofukiyo-e paintings, the technique of ink painting was brought to Japan from China. In the early period of pictorial tattoos, only outlines of designs were tattooed. It is called sujibori, outlining. A few colors were used for tattooing: black ink, vermilion and brown (Iizawa, 1973). Tattooing then applied bokashibori, shading, proceeding from the ink painting techniques. The characteristics of this style included the use of gradation and the strength that black ink and a paint brush make. The use of various colors made the designs more colorful and established the pictorial tattooing style.

The idea of the full body tattoo comes from samurai warriors' costumes called jimbaori, a sleeveless campaign coat (Iizawa, 1973). It looked like a vest and was easy to slip on over armor (Minnich, 1963: 32). The samurai had their favorite patterns on the back of the jimbaori. They tended to like heroic designs and perhaps wanted to show their courage and pride. Some designs represented a guardian deity or adragon.

The first style of tattoo was done only on the back (Iizawa, 1973). Gradually, the tattoo designs extended to the shoulders, arms, and thighs, and the tattooed pictures finally came to appear on the whole body. Tamabayashi (1956) illustrates typical shapes, patterns and designs of the full body tattoos in detail. Van Gulik (1982) refers to one of the tattoo patterns as munawari. Tattooing over the entire front of the upper part of the torso with the exception of a vertical strip running from the chest to the abdomen, gave the effect of an unbuttoned vest (p.101).

The term, iki, meaning stylishness, smartness or chic, symbolizes the nature of the Edo culture and the spirit of common people. The sense of iki was raised from resistance towards social restrictions and pressure in those days. Common people were forced to wear only plain clothes. There was rivalry with the superior class. Tattooing was born out of a sense of competition. The commoners began to show off iki to each other, and competing iki was called date or date shin (a sense of stylishness). The word, iki in English would be "the coolest" things.Having the full body tattoos was iki, and achieved the peak of popularity. Especially, during the Bunka Bunsei period (1804-1830), the number of tattooed individuals was rapidly growing, and professional tattooists began to appear.

The Tokugawa government prohibited tattooing in order to control the people's life and customs. However, it had no effect on the commoners' attitudes. Some authors explain that merchants were not allowed to wear gorgeous kimonos because of the rigid social system. So they turned to tattooing instead. Tamabayashi (1956), however, argues that the wealthy mchants did not wear tattoos.The majority of tattooed people were townspeople, especially scaffold constructors, rickshaw men, and gamblers. Amongst merchants, who were also a part of the townspeople, the practice of tattooing was rarely seen. The wealthy merchants did not wear tattoos. Even though some merchants with small business such as fish sellers got tattooed, it was exceptional (Tamabayashi, 1956: 184, translated by the author).

Iizawa (1973) states "samurai and upper-class merchants did not have tattoos, but most artisans (labor workers) did get tattooed" (p.167). The samurai or the merchants were more likely to hide their tattoos, because of their social status or position. This probably resulted from the prevalence of Confucianism among the samurai and the merchants.