PAINTED PEOPLE EB
About this book
In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing 'an art without a history'. 'No-one', it went on, 'has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.'
Until now.
Painted People is a beguiling and intimate look at an untold history of humanity.
The earliest tattoos yet identified belonged to Ötzi, the 'iceman', whose mummy allows us a brief glimpse into the prehistory of the practice. We know that over the more than five thousand years since he was tattooed, countless cultures have performed this ancient practice, and people in every corner of the world have been tattooed. For the most part, these fascinating histories remain stubbornly untold, and the secrets of Siberian princesses, Chinese generals and Victorian socialites have been hidden on the skin, under layers of clothing and under layers of history. Now with access to a wealth of new and unreported material, this book will roll up its sleeves and reveal the artwork hidden beneath them.
In Painted People, Dr Matt Lodder, one of the world's foremost experts on tattooing, tells the stories of people like Arnaq, who was tattooed in keeping with her cultural and religious traditions in sixteenth-century Canada, and Horace Ridler, who was tattooed as a means to make money in 1930s London. And in between these two extremes, he describes tattoos inked for love, for loyalty, for sedition and espionage and for self-expression, as well as tattoos inflicted on the unwilling, to ostracise. Taken together, these twenty-one tattoos paint a portrait of humanity as both artist and canvas.
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Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction: ‘Tattooing our Skins and Calling it Painting’
- PART ONE: TATTOOS FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD
- 1 Crosses and Dashes: Ötzi the Iceman, c. 3400 BCE
- 2 Raging Bull: The Gebelein Man, c. 3300 BCE
- 3 ‘Call for the revolt of Ionia’: Histiaeus’ Slave, 499 BCE
- 4 A Lady’s Tattoos: Ochy-Bala, the Altai Princess, 277 BCE
- PART TWO: TATTOOS IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD
- 5 ‘Serve the nation with utmost loyalty’: Yue Fei, 1122
- 6 Facial Tattooing on the Unknown Shore: Arnaq, 1577
- 7 Kakiuineq Hiding in Plain Sight: Mikak, 1768
- 8 ‘Pricking various figures on their flesh with the point of a pin’: Jane White, Mary Cunningham and The Forty Thieves, 1838
- PART THREE: TATTOOING AFTER 1853
- 9 ‘Gather up some good feelings, some more than merely passing pleasure, from these sacred scenes’: Albert, Prince of Wales, 1862
- 10 ‘Do you tattoo your children yet?’: Roger Tichborne, 1871
- 11 ‘Some memento of their heart’s history’: Adi Lebaleba, 1876
- 12 ‘Elegant specimen of chromatic needlework’: Aimee Crocker, 1900
- PART FOUR: TATTOOING IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
- 13 ‘I just love sailor boys’: Madeline Altman, 1906
- 14 Tattooing is in Fashion: Elsa Schiaparelli, 1929
- 15 ‘Hurt like fun’: Joe Carstairs, c. 1925
- 16 ‘Blue all over’: Horace Ridler, 1934
- PART FIVE: TATTOOING TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM
- 17 ‘The songs of my heart’: Charlie Dick, 1941
- 18 An Artistic Hammer and Sickle: Anita Alores, 1953
- 19 ‘A bit more on his arse’: Alan Oversby, 1988
- 20 ‘Pain doesn’t scare me’: Dennis Rodman, 1994
- Conclusion: As Ancient as Time, As Modern as Tomorrow
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- About the Publisher