Colegiul naional Mihai Viteazul

Sfntu Gheorghe, Covasna

Lucrare scris n vederea obinerii atestatului de limba
i literatura englez

TATTOOS
Profesor coordonator: Barabas Adriana Elev: Moldovean Paula

Mai, 2014

Colegiul Naional Mihai Viteazul
Sfntu Gheorghe, Covasna


TATTOOS

Profesor coordonator: Barabas Adriana Elev: Moldovean Paula
Mai, 2014



TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction................................................................................... 3
Etymology...................................................................................... 4
Types of tattoes............................................................................. 5
History........................................................................................... 6
Process........................................................................................... 7
Associations................................................................................... 8
Tattooe styles................................................................................ 9
Tattoo removal............................................................................. 10
Temporary tattoo......................................................................... 11
Conclusion.................................................................................... 12
Bibliography................................................................................. 13








Introduction
A tattoo is a form of body modification, made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of
the skin to change the pigment.
Put technically, a tattoo is a design or marking made by the insertion of a pigment into
punctures or cuts in the skin. In technical terms, tattooing is micro-pigment implatation.
Tattoos are permanent markings in the skin, usually made by way of ink and needles. Once
ink is deposited into the dermis, the second layer of the skin, the wound scabs over and the
skin heals to expose a design under the new layer of skin.
Tattooing is one of the oldest art forms known to man. It is a type of body modification that
involves creating permanent words or images on the skin. In order to get these images on
the skin, ink must be injected under the surface of the skin, by piercing it with a small needle.
In ancient times, tattoos were not only applied for decoration, but they were also held
symbolic significance as well. Some tattoos were applied because they had religious
meaning, for instance, while others were status symbols. At a few points in history, tattoos
were even used to mark slaves, as well as prisoners and other criminals.
Today, tattoos are generally used as a form of decoration and self-expression. Some modern
tattoos can be quite simple, while others may be very elaborate. Different images can range
from simple flowers and cartoon characters, to more ornate portraits and scenes. While not
every tattoo has a deep meaning to its wearer, most tattoos still signify something.
Individuals will usually choose a tattoo that means something to them, such as an important
turning point in their lives.
While the practice of tattooing used to be illegal, it is now an acceptable form of body art and
practice. Depending on where you reside, there are certain age restrictions that may dictate
the minimum age for getting a tattoo. Check with an established tattoo shop for local laws or
jurisdictions specifying these tattoo requirements. In most cases, you'll need to be 18 years
of age or have parental consent before getting a tattoo. You'll likely need that time to select a
pierce with significance anyway.
Whether it be a memorial piece or one that expresses interests, hobbies, or even love
themes, tattoos are rich in cultural history and deserve a bit of respect.
People receive tattoos for a variety of reasons: to identify themselves with a religious or
social group, to adorn their bodies, as protective symbols, to cover skin discolorations, or as
ongoing art and social projects. Most tattoo artists are themselves heavily tattooed. Some
individuals have been forcibly tattooed, most notably victims of the Holocaust and prisoners.

Etymology
The word "tattoo" was brought to Europe by the explorer James Cook, when he returned in 1771
from his first voyage to Tahiti and New Zealand. In his narrative of the voyage, he refers to an
operation called "tattaw". Before this it had been described as scarring, painting, or staining.

Tattoo enthusiasts may refer to tattoos as "ink", "pieces", "skin art", "tattoo art", "tats", or "work";
to the creators as "tattoo artists, "tattooers", or "tattooists"; and to places where they work as
"tattoo shops", "tattoo studios", or "tattoo parlors".
The Japanese word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and can mean tattoos using tebori, the
traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine, or for that matter, any method of
tattooing using insertion of ink. The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo
designs is Horimono. Japanese may use the word "tattoo" to mean non-Japanese styles of
tattooing.

Types of tattoos
The American Academy of Dermatology distinguishes five types of tattoos: traumatic tattoos,
also called "natural tattoos", that result from injuries, especially asphalt from road injuries or
pencil lead; amateur tattoos; professional tattoos, both via traditional methods and modern
tattoo machines; cosmetic tattoos, also known as "permanent makeup and medical tattoos.

Traumatic tattoos

According to George Orwell, coal miners could develop characteristic tattoos owing to coal
dust getting into wounds. This can also occur with substances like gunpowder. Similarly, a
traumatic tattoo occurs when a substance such as asphalt is rubbed into a wound as the
result of some kind of accident or trauma. These are particularly difficult to remove as they
tend to be spread across several different layers of skin, and scarring or permanent
discoloration is almost unavoidable depending on the location. An amalgam tattoo is
when amalgam particles are implanted in to the soft tissues of the mouth, usually the gums,
during dental filling placement or removal; another example of such accidental tattoos is the
result of a deliberate or accidental stabbing with a pencil or pen, leaving graphite or ink
beneath the skin.


Amateur and professional tattoos

Many tattoos serve as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and
spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love,
punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and
convicts. The symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures. Tattoos
may show how a person feels about a relative (commonly mother/father or daughter/son) or
about an unrelated person. Today, people choose to be tattooed for artistic, cosmetic,
sentimental/memorial, religious, and magical reasons, and to symbolize their belonging to or
identification with particular groups, including criminal gangs or a particular ethnic group or
law-abiding subculture.


Identification

People have also been forcibly tattooed. A well-known example is the identification
system for inmates in Nazi concentration camps during The Holocaust. The Nazis introduced
the practice of tattooing at Auschwitz in 1941 in order to identify the bodies of registered
prisoners in the concentration camps. During registration, they would pierce the outlines of
the serial-number digits onto the prisoners' arms. Tattoos have also been used for
identification in other ways.


Cosmetic
When used as a form of cosmetics, tattooing includes permanent makeup and hiding or
neutralizing skin discolorations. Permanent makeup is the use of tattoos to enhance
eyebrows, lips (liner and/or lipstick), eyes (liner), and even moles, usually with natural colors,
as the designs are intended to resemble makeup.


History
Tattooing has been practiced for centuries in many cultures and spread throughout the
world.The Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan, traditionally had facial tattoos, as did
the Austroasians. Today, one can find Atayal, Seediq, Truku, and Saisiyat of
Taiwan, Berbers of Tamazgha (North Africa), Yoruba, Fulani and Hausa people of Nigeria,
and Mori of New Zealand with facial tattoos.
Tattooing was popular among certain ethnic groups in southern China, Polynesia,
Africa, Borneo, Cambodia, Europe, Japan, the Mentawai Islands, MesoAmerica, New
Zealand, North America and South America, the Philippines, Iron Age Britain,
and Taiwan. The modern revival in tattooing stems from the voyage of Captain James Cook
in the late 1700s. Cook's Science Officer and Expedition Botanist, Sir Joseph Banks,
returned to England with a tattoo. Banks was a highly regarded member of the English
aristocracy and had acquired his position with Cook by putting up what was at the time the
princely sum of some ten thousand pounds in the expedition. In turn, Cook brought back with
him a tattooed Raiatean man, Omai, whom he presented to King George and the English
Court. Many of Cook's men, ordinary seamen and sailors, came back with tattoos, a tradition
that would soon become associated with men of the sea in the public's mind and the press of
the day. In the process sailors and seamen re-introduced the practice of tattooing in Europe
and it spread rapidly to seaports around the globe.


Process
Tattooing involves the placement of pigment into the skin's dermis, the layer of dermal tissue
underlying the epidermis. After initial injection, pigment is dispersed throughout
a homogenized damaged layer down through the epidermis and upper dermis, in both of
which the presence of foreign material activates the immune system's phagocytes to engulf
the pigment particles. As healing proceeds, the damaged epidermis flakes away (eliminating
surface pigment) while deeper in the skin granulation tissue forms, which is later converted to
connective tissue by collagen growth. This mends the upper dermis, where pigment remains
trapped within fibroblasts, ultimately concentrating in a layer just below the dermis/epidermis
boundary. Its presence there is stable, but in the long term (decades) the pigment tends to
migrate deeper into the dermis, accounting for the degraded detail of old tattoos.
Some tribal cultures traditionally created tattoos by cutting designs into the skin and rubbing
the resulting wound with ink, ashes or other agents; some cultures continue this practice,
which may be an adjunct to scarification. Some cultures create tattooed marks by hand-
tapping the ink into the skin using sharpened sticks or animal bones (made like needles) with
clay formed disks or, in modern times, needles.

The most common method of tattooing in modern times is the electric tattoo machine, which
inserts ink into the skin via a single needle or a group of needles that are soldered onto a
bar, which is attached to an oscillating unit. The unit rapidly and repeatedly drives the
needles in and out of the skin, usually 80 to 150 times a second. This modern procedure is
ordinarily sanitary. The needles are single-use needles that come packaged individually. The
tattoo artist must wash his or her hands and must also wash the area that will be tattooed.
Gloves must be worn at all times and the wound must be wiped frequently with a wet
disposable towel of some kind. The equipment must be sterilized in a certified autoclave
before and after every use.



Tattoe styles


Black-and-gray tattoo
Black-and-gray (also black-and-grey, black and grey/gray) is a style of tattooing that uses
only black ink in varying shades.
The style is said to have originated in prisons where inmates had limited access to different
colors of ink, which then became widely popular in tattoo parlors outside of prison.
Typically, black and gray tattoo work is produced by diluting the black ink with distilled water
in various proportions, creating a "wash", lighter shades can be produced. Some artists mix
white ink with black to produce a gray shade, but it is not the traditional method.
After a tattoo has been completed with varying degrees of black, highlights are often added
using white. White ink can also be used to smooth out sharp transitions between the different
shades.


Body suit
A body suit or full body suit is an extensive tattoo, usually of a similar pattern, style or
theme that covers the entire torso or the entire body.
They are associated with freak show and circus performers, as well as with traditional
Japanese tattooing.
Such suits are of significant cultural meaning in some traditional cultures, representing a rite
of passage, marriage or a social designation




Finger moustache
The finger moustache tattoo, otherwise known as the "fingerstache", is a tattoo of a
stylized moustache on the index finger. The finger is then placed between the nose and the
lips, simulating a moustache.



Marquesan tattoo
A Marquesan tattoo is a tattoo design originating from the Marquesas Islands of the South
Pacific. Marquesan tattoos can be recognized by 'trademark symbols', such
as geckos, centipedes, the Marquesan Cross and other geometric designs. Marquesan
designs distinguish themselves through the use of symbols and consistent artistic renderings
of lines, arches and circles, which are uniquely attributed and linked through history to the
South Pacific Islands.




Old school tattoo
Old School (also "Old Skool" or "Traditional") refers to a Western or traditional
Americana tattoo style featuring bold, blue-black outlines, usually filled with solid red and
green with rare additions of blue, yellow, brown and purple; and embellished with little or no
shading. Norman Keith Collins, also known as "Sailor Jerry", (19111973) is one of the most
well known traditional tattoo artist.



Sailor tattoos
Sailor tattoos refer to a type of tattoo traditionally favored by sailors and the traditions that
accompany these tattoos. "Old school" tattoos were common among sailors, depicting
images like swallows on either side of the chest, girls in sailor hats, and pairs of dice. Sailor
Jerry's work typified this style of tattooing during the early-mid twentieth century. After falling
out of style for several decades, these stylized tattoos are regaining popularity again among
young people, both sailors and non-sailors. They are particularly favored among tattoo artists
themselves. This returning trend is also seen in the increasing popularity of traditional Sailor
Jerry designs, nautical tattoos and even clothing printed with stylized tattoo images.

Scarification
Scarifying (also scarification modification) involves scratching, etching, burning /
branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a
permanent body modification. In the process of body scarification, scars are formed
by cutting or branding the skin by varying methods (sometimes using further sequential
aggravating wound healing methods at timed intervals, like irritation.), to purposely influence
wound healing to scar more and not scarless. Scarification is sometimes
called cicatrization (from the French equivalent).




Swallow tattoo
The swallow tattoo was a symbol used historically by sailors to show off their sailing
experience. Of British origin in the early days of sailing, it was the image of a Barn Swallow,
usually tattooed on the chest, hands or neck.
The swallow also represents love, care and affection towards family and friends, showing the
loyalty of the person always returning to them. The bird also represents freedom and hope.



Tattoo removal
While tattoos are considered permanent, it is sometimes possible to remove them, fully or
partially, with laser treatments. Typically, black and some colored inks can be removed more
completely than inks of other colors. The expense and pain associated with removing tattoos
are typically greater than the expense and pain associated with applying them. Pre-laser
tattoo removal methods include dermabrasion, salabrasion (scrubbing the skin
with salt), cryosurgery, and excisionwhich is sometimes still used along with skin grafts for
larger tattoos. These older methods, however, have been nearly completely replaced by
laser removal treatment options.
Temporary tattoo
Ink or coloring applied to the surface of skin is sometimes referred to as a "tattoo". Mehndi,
also known as a henna, is a traditionally Hindu method of staining the skin. Modern
techniques include ink transfers on sheets of paper.



Conclusion
A tattoo can be a drawing, a sentence, a word or a symbol that a person decides to draw on his skin.
A tattoo can have different meanings and whoever decides to wear one, probably wants to mark a
period of his life, a passion or something really important for her/ him.
I think that tattoos are something good because in some ways they are a form of art, and represent
something personal, really important that people want to reveal about themselves.
No matter where you look these days its a common thing to see someone with at least one
tattoo. This doesnt mean that society is dwindling in any way, nor does it mean that mankind
is becoming a bunch of clones following after one leader. Tattoos have built there own
reputation over the years, gaining in popularity. Over the years more and more people have
decided to get them which only goes to show the phenomenon that is tattoos.
When you decide to look at the psychology of tattoos, you must first understand some of the
meanings. A tattoo can tell you a lot about the individual and his past. Although some tattoos
may be a bit frightening, that individual may have got the tattoos in his past and turn out to be
nothing like that now. Like others out there the tattoos that were obtained in the past may
be left as a reminder for the future.
Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo#Etymology
http://www.tattoojohnny.com/search/Mask
http://www.tattoo.com/
http://www.getinked.co.uk/about-tattoos.html
http://rattatattoo.com/

Steve Gilbert. The Tattoo History Source Book

Lal Hardy. The Mammoth Book of Tattoos

Jian Yi. One Million Tattoos

C.R. Jordan. Basic Fundamentals Of Modern Tattoo