Tattoo artist

“ Tattooing is a gift,” said the night-watchman, firmly. “It ‘as to be a gift, as you can well see. A man ‘as to know wot ‘e is going to tattoo an' ‘ow to do it; there's no rubbing out or altering. It's a gift, an' it can't be learnt. I knew a man once as used to tattoo a cabin-boy all over every v'y'ge trying to learn. ‘E was a slow, painstaking sort o' man, and the langwidge those boys used to use while ‘e was at work would ‘ardly be believed, but ‘e ‘ad to give up trying arter about fifteen years and take to crochet-work instead. ”

“ In order, therefore, to drown such cries, and so preserve the patient's reputation for bravery, it is usual for a number of his female friends to sing songs throughout the operation. Some tattooers acquire great skill in their art, and will form a design which shall be beautiful, elaborate, or otherwise, according to the fee. But in any case it is well to deal liberally with the artist, lest he should allow the chisel to slip "accidentally on purpose," and produce a permanent disfigurement instead of a fine design. ”

“ Various old persons said that they remembered seeing men with a pattern on the back similar to the rings and girdle of the images. It seems, however, doubtful whether the image design merely represented tattoo, in view of the fact that it was raised, not incised, and in any case this would only put the search for its prototype a stage further back. The fact, however, remains that those particular marks were still being perpetuated, and form a link connecting the present with the past. ”

“ Painting is temporary and needs frequent renewal. In many parts of the world we find color designs, elaborate, curious, sometimes beautiful, made permanent by tattooing. The pattern and the method vary greatly with locality. In some regions men only tattoo, in others only women, in others both sexes. ”

“ No man could tattoo himself, and the delicacy of touch and certainty of line was so difficult of attainment, that tattooing became an art or science, which was left in the hands of a few practitioners, who derived a good income from their business. ”

“ At Nukahiva, noble ladies are permitted to wear more numerous tattoo marks than the women of the people.
In Samoa, widows, it seems, tattoo the tongue; men paint the body from the girdle to the knees. The bald heads of old men in the Marquesas Islands may be seen covered with tattoo marks. ”

“ The custom of tattooing was never prevalent among the women, except those who had been captured from other communities to be companions for the men in the Failu or Pabai; they were tattooed on the backs of their hands and on their legs as a lasting reminder, when they had married respectably and had lost their youthful charm in bringing up a family, that once they had been like the lilies of the field and a thing of beauty, but, sadly indeed, not a joy forever. ”

“ That is as it should be, for tattooing is of our gods and of our religion before the whites destroyed it. I was and am the master of our arts. I did not sketch out my design upon his skin with burned bamboo, as do some, but struck home the ama ink directly. My needles were the bones of one whom I had slain, an enemy of the Oi tribe. I myself gathered the candlenuts and, burning them to powder, mixed that with water and made my color. ”

“ An artist of the first rank, one who in a Marquesan salon would have a medal of honor, disdained such commissions, but dauber and South Sea Da Vinci alike 342often had their work hung upon the line, when they were taken by the enemy and suspended at the High Place before being dropped into the pit for the banquets of the cannibal victors.
It was always of interest to me to wonder how men learned tattooing. Painters, carvers, etchers, and sculptors have material ever available for their lessons. ”

“ Tattooing prevails as widely among the lower races of the world as painting, and the fashionable designs range from a few blue lines on the face or arms, up to the flower-patterns with which the skins of the Formosans are covered like damask. Where the art is carried to perfection as in Polynesia, the skin is punctured, and the charcoal-colour introduced, by tapping rows of little prickers. ”

“ Even the rude savage seeks to gratify his aesthetic tastes, so far as the means which nature places at his command permit. The custom of tattooing the skin is widely practiced among the lower races, and stars and circles, trees and plants, and other ingenious devices are impressed with laborious patience upon the different members of the body. ”

“ The art of sculpture is also in its rudest state, and is almost limited to the ornamenting of the war-club with indented lines, forming different angular figures.
Their persons are often neatly tattooed in straight 74 lines, and in angles on the breast, neck, and arms. The daughters of chiefs, and those of wealthy Indians, generally are denoted by a small round spot, tattooed on the forehead. The process of tattooing is performed by persons, who make it a business of profit. ”

“ Their tattooing, however, is much fainter and less profuse than among the women, every visible part of whose skin is generally marked with a great variety of patterns, the most usual style among them consisting in series of double parallel or converging lines an inch or more apart, the intervals being occupied by small figures, or irregular lines, with detached rectilinear figures fancifully filled up. ”

“ The fashion of elaborate tattooing, which seems to have been prevalent among the men of the past generation in Uap, is at present decidedly on the wane. There are still some few middle-aged men who proudly display a complete suit of tattooing, but I am afraid that they are looked upon by the dandies of the day somewhat in the same light as the wearer of a frilled shirt-front and lace cuffs would be regarded by the exquisites of our own day,—just a tinge of respect for old age [158] but a devout thankfulness that such fashions are not the demand of this enlightened and superior era. ”

“ Among the women the tattooing extends over the face, fore part of the arms, and whole front of body continued backwards a little way over the shoulders, usually, but not always, leaving the back untouched. ”

“ The tedious and painful operation of tattooing is performed by professionals, who make a paying business of it. The skin is punctured by an instrument made of bone, or by spines of the shaddock-tree, while the dye injected is usually obtained by boiling the candle-nut. Among some of the Pacific tribes tattooing is considered religiously binding ”

“ Scar tattooing is connected with various rites such as are followed when a brave arrives at manhood, and certainly tattooing serves to indicate the family or tribe to [277] which the ornamented person belongs. There is no doubt, however, that the intention of much tattooing is to increase individual beauty. ”

“ After one session, the tattooing is not resumed until the skin is entirely healed, unless an approaching marriage necessitates the utmost speed; should a woman have a child before her tattooing is completed, she is lastingly disgraced. The Kenyah women are tattooed only on the forearms and hands and on the dorsum of the foot, not on the legs or thighs. ”

“ Men are never tattooed, but women are freely tattooed on the face and body. One dot is made in the centre of the forehead and three on the left nostril in the form of a triangle. All the limbs and the fingers and toes may also be tattooed, the most common patterns being a peacock with spread wings, a fish, cuckoo, scorpion, a child’s doll, a sieve, a pattern of Sīta’s cookroom and representations of all female ornaments. Some women think that they will be able to sell the ornaments tattooed on their bodies in the next world and subsist on the proceeds. ”

“ When a youth, therefore, reached the age of sixteen, he and his friends were all anxiety that he should be tattooed. He was then on the outlook for the tattooing of some young chief with whom he might unite. On these occasions, six or a dozen young men would be tattooed at one time; and for these there might be four or five tattooers employed. ”

“ Among their personal ornaments must be reckoned that mode of marking the body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the comfort or happiness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively practised throughout the world. ”

“ Among the means taken by these people to produce personal ornamentation that of tattooing the face and wearing a labret is the most noticeable. The custom of tattooing having existed from the earliest historical epochs is important, not only from an ethnological but from a medical and pathological point of view, and even in its relation to medical jurisprudence in cases of contested personal identity. ”

“ It was past noon when I joined them and the whole merry populace of Vaitahu in the warm ocean waves. I was without pain or stiffness, and reborn to a childhood I had forgotten.
336 CHAPTER XVII Skilled tattooers of Marquesas Islands a generation ago—Entire bodies covered with intricate tattooed designs—The foreigner who had himself tattooed to win the favor of a Marquesan beauty—The magic that removed the markings when he was recalled to his former life in England.
TATTOOING, the marking of designs on the human skin in life, is an art so old that its beginnings are lost to records. ”

“ Tattooing is carried on to a considerable extent, especially by the women, who have a habit of raising little elevated scars in their foreheads, sometimes arranged in the form of a diamond, and situated between the eyes. Several marks are made on the cheeks, and a few on the chest and abdomen. ”

“ Lacassagne, a French physician, has published a book on the habit of tattooing as practised in the French army. There are professional tattooers in Paris and Lyons who charge half a franc for each design. Generally the tattooer has cartoons on paper and reproduces these on the skin by a mechanical process. Large designs cost a good deal; a big representation of an Indian holding up the flag of the United States costs the decorated person fifteen francs. China ink is the coloring substance preferred, touched up with vermilion. ”

“ The person to be tattooed is then placed on his back, being stripped naked, and the operator being informed of the extent of the design to be represented, proceeds to mark an outline with the ink, which, if correct, is punctured with the instrument above alluded to, so as to draw blood, filling up the punctures with the coloring matter as he goes along, by dipping the needles therein and applying them. ”

“ The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires to-day. The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. ”

“ We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display. We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from which we are regarded by our neighbor. Our fine patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration, though we turn ourselves all round to show them. ”

“ If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; ”

“ “If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul; that alone matters; it is that which the sculptor or painter should seek beneath the mask of features. ”

“ "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him. ”

“ “An artist worthy of the name should express all the truth of nature, not only the exterior truth, but also, and above all, the inner truth.
“When a good sculptor models a torso, he not only represents the muscles, but the life which animates them—more than the life, the force that fashioned them and communicated to them, it may be, grace or strength, or amorous charm, or indomitable will.
“In the works of Michael Angelo, the creative force seems to rumble; in those of Luca della Robbia it smiles divinely. ”

“ But the Kaffir ladies, old and young alike, think it a point of honor to be dressed in their very best when their portraits are taken, and will insist upon bedizening themselves exactly in the way which is most destructive to photography. They take fresh grease, and rub their bodies until they shine like a well-polished boot; they indue every necklace, girdle, bracelet, or other ornament that they can muster, and not until they are satisfied with their personal appearance will they present themselves to the artist. ”

“ As an artist, however, as a person skilled in his calling, the things that usually most interest him are technique, design, color, light and shade, line, and manner of laying the paint on the canvas. It has probably always been the fashion for artists themselves to speak rather scornfully of the interests aroused by and the pleasure taken in pictures from the point of view of the story or of the other elements already mentioned, and to think of them as lying outside the field of art proper. ”