OK, I guess it’s “Tattoo Week” at CVLT Nation, because I found some sick old-timey photos of our tatted up ancestors and I am going to post them. If you think about the kind of balls, and even more so ovaries, that it took to tatt up your body in the early to mid 1900s, it’s fascinating to think of the lives that these men and women led. When I look at some of these beautiful women whose bodies are covered in tattoos, I just think about the kind of societal disgust they must have had to deal with on a regular basis. Women smoking was frowned on, women leaving the house on their own was considered “asking for it,” so imagine what people thought about a woman with the Last Supper tattooed across her back. The other thing that strikes me about these tattoos is their beauty and harmony. You don’t see a lot of the weird mish-mash of tatts that you do today, these people took their body art seriously and treated their entire body as one continuous canvas, resulting in beautiful pieces that seamlessly covered their arms, torso, back and legs. This is where tatooing as a part of modern western culture began, and kind of like hip-hop, the mainstream has strayed far, far away from its roots. Check out a gorgeous gallery of vintage tattoo portraits below, ranging from the 1910s to the 1960s.
Images via http://artsytime.com/antique-tattoos/ and http://vintage-tattoo.tumblr.com/
headovmetal
August 9, 2013 at 3:54 am
Great selection! LEGENDS!