Ink
To
Religion
Japan only entered modernization and
started accepting influences from the
West after the prominent rise of tattoos.
The shogun closed off ports to specific
countries such as China and the
Netherlands, until 1853. They were quite
secluded, but it also established a period
that allowed them to cultivate their own
culture and find back the essences of
Japanese traditions.
Buddhism ,
Shintoism, and
Confucianism .
These are Japan’s three major religions
and their timeless impact resonates
within Japanese tattoos and thus,
develops the perceptions that the
Japanese community holds from the
past, to the present.
If you think that Irezumi are simply
images of flowers or exotic women, think
again. It is not simply art; it is the work of
a craftsman. It takes high level of skills to
be familiar with the way of the Tebori
method compared to using modern
tattooing machines. These tattooist take
their art more serious than anyone could
imagine.
They spend countless hours learning and
understanding the way different
symbols, images work and how to apply
them in certain manners or locations of
the body. All this consideration and
dedication to learning about the stories
behind the images, is what truly let the
rich traditions and culture of Japan shine
through from the wearer and the
tattooist themselves. These
iconographies have various levels of
meaning that cannot be interpreted
without a cultural context. It is not just
being in someone else’s shoes, it is being
part of the Japanese community and
their values.
Silence is
more eloquent than
words.
Flowers , are a fatal existence. Its
beauty is incomparable to any other when
it blooms, but eventually it would falter.
The idea of Buddhism is that anything,
beautiful or not, is fleeting. Inspired by
this, there was an air of melancholy over
the aristocracy class who were still at the
top of society and they were expected to
contemplate over the transience of
existence. Buddhism in particular, was such
an influential religion that their aesthetic
ideals manifested into the act of preserving
the impermanent beauty around them
through abstract ways. Tattoos are a
capture of such united beliefs.
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