A Living Form
Time and place in the Japanese tattoo tradition.
Traditional Japanese tattoos are not only an art form, but an artistic code embedded with the unique cultural and spiritual values of Japan. Horimono, as we experience it today, reached its full realization in the cultural quarantine of the Tokugawa era, as an expression of the aesthetic and philosophical values of the Japanese people. In this sense, horimono is distinctly Japanese in its form and process.
In the modern era, Japanese tattooing (ironically taboo in its home culture) has spread to the West. Now, horimono is no longer limited to Japanese people or the merchant class or the Edo period. This universality has many virtues and suggests that the Japanese tattooing tradition will persist for generations to come. The reality of a cultural idiom taking root outside of its homeland is part of human history. We see this in the way that Indian Buddhism took root in Tibet, China, and Japan, and how Tibetan Buddhism is, in turn, being preserved in India amidst the Chinese cultural revolution.
The question is whether something as culturally-defined as tattooing can be rightly experienced by foreign cultures. The answer depends on various factors. For one, traditional Japanese tattoo art has influenced the Western tattoo tradition significantly, and many artists tattoo these art forms within a Western tradition. Meanwhile, artists who practice in the traditional Japanese manner go through extensive training in a lineage context, and are thus few and far between. Those who find these rare practitioners and are thus privileged to experience horimono for should fully invest themselves in the process.
I am reminded of jazz guitarist, Pat Martino, when he said that jazz music was a unique expression of a culture, of a time, a place, a vibe. In an interview with All About Jazz, Martino said:
AAJ: What's your opinion of the music industry and the place of jazz within it?
PM: All of this, I think, goes to the ultimate, which is going to be the result of how it's going to be accepted, how much it's going to be enjoyed as a good product that is historically available from that time forward. I think that the educational system, conservatories and music institutions, and all of the youngsters that are there at this particular time, with definition and with determination about what they're really promoting into their futures, the one thing that is missing is missing in our culture itself.
The study of jazz at this point is a very difficult study of something that is almost impossible to be able to provide authenticity. And that leads back to the fact that the culture doesn't exist anymore. It's difficult to walk into a jazz club the way you did in the '60s, with people who were there surrounding the intimacy of the environment where jazz was really explosively taking place. And that included so many things that this culture is lacking. And that took place with DJs who are now record company owners; a good example is Joel Dorn over at 32Jazz. I remember when Joel had a radio show in Philadelphia and at that time was the first time that I heard The Montgomery Brothers. That's when I was a 14 year old boy, and that's what stimulated me.
The music business has changed tremendously. Fashion has changed tremendously. Everything has changed in our culture. Coming back to jazz, I think there is a lack of authenticity in terms of its study at this point in time. It's being analyzed, it's the equivalent of step time versus real time. I think both of them are necessary, but at some point hopefully in the future the culture will re-organize itself. Then and only then will jazz participate in a living form, as it did earlier.
Martino saw his music as an “audio photograph” and jazz itself as a “living form” that took shape in the present moment of the total cultural environment. Martino’s reflection is a sentiment that, I think, all craftspersons can relate to. When I think of acupuncture, for example, I remember the words of J.R. Worsley that acupuncture is a “way of life”. I believe traditional Japanese tattoo artists would also agree that horimono is not just a combination of artistic knowledge and technical mastery, but the living form of a cultural way of life. Does this mean the past is the past and cannot be realized in the present? Has the cultural context of Japanese tattooing disappeared just as much as it has for jazz? Martino seems to believe that there is hope for the future of jazz, if “culture will re-organize itself”.
Japanese tattoos are like jazz music in this sense, but in another sense, they endure the changes of time better than music. Jazz music itself is vast, with different forms and variations. Every artist is different and so is their style. Martino’s hard bop organ trio format is unlikely to be replicated or even if it is, we have to wonder how the idioms of the 60s and 70s would feel when attempted today. Even more interesting is the fact of Martino, as an Italian-American, playing what was originally African-American music. If we continue the comparison to Japanese tattooing, then we can see how the living form of art is culturally specific but fundamentally universal. This is why artistic forms can be appreciated and realized cross-culturally, a reality that seems especially facilitated by today’s global connectedness. I would like to see humanity leverage the advantages of modernity to preserve these great traditions, lest we fall into the abyss of a post-modern vacuum.
Despite the cross-cultural nature of art, we have to appreciate how traditional Japanese tattooing is distinctly and fundamentally Japanese. This is a learning experience for some more than others, but for all of us in various ways. We live in an era where the erasure of cultural identity is commonplace and where the world, as a whole, has become essentially Western. This is not right or wrong, but it should beckon us to understand our past, what our present values should be, and what kind of future belongs to us. This is where tattooing, as a cultural process, plays an important role in society.
References
1. Pat Martino--The Continuous Pulsation of the Now
2. Here and Now!: The Autobiography of Pat Martino