Rene Magritte has spoken of someone clad "only in the robe of her skin," and this concept of surface as substance is observed by the tattooing tradition of Japan, the craft that created the brocaded skin of which this beautiful book speaks.
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The full-body tattoo is, strictly, a kind of undergarment. It is displayed only in the privacy of bed or bath, and it carries with it the same flavor of transgression that the undecorated naked body does (or did) in the West. To be naked is, after all, to dispense with the signs and symbols of "civilization." To further decorate the skin with a private aesthetic vocabulary is to marginalize still further the claims of society.
Philippe Pons is a distinguished chronicler of just this kind of dissent in Japan. His "D'Edo a Tokyo" is not (or is not only) a political history. It describes the entire elaborate class system of the capital, now and then. "Misere et Crime au Japan, du XVII siecle a nos jours" which Gallimard published last year, is a wonderful reportage of those segments of society that official Japan ignores.
He here investigates tattooing both as social statement and as a craft with the standards of a fine art. There are many reasons for being willingly tattooed, paying for the distinction and enduring the pain of the process. It is a sign of alternate fealty (no longer to the state but to the yakuza brotherhood or to the firemen's guild or to the sushi-maker's union) and also serves (expensive, painful) as initiation.
At the same time, the tattoo can be seen as a talisman. Hence (on men) the proliferation of icons expressing bravery, hopefully a masculine trait. Similarly, it can be seen as beautification. This is most obvious when applied to tattooed women, but everyone likes to look his or her best, and the aesthetic appeal of the tattoo is one of its strongest elements.
Pons especially stresses this, not only through his description but also through his choice of illustration. The sumptuous portfolios dedicated to different craftsmen, the ravishing plate of a tattooed woman bathing, the portraits of nude yakuza gatherings -- all insist upon the beauty of the tattoo.
This aesthetic lineage is well illustrated not only in period photographs and drawings, but also in the Kuniyoshi "shunga" included as illustration. The legacy of the woodblock print much influenced the development of the Japanese tattoo. Indeed, a number of young men (and a lesser number of young women) are wearing Kuniyoshi under their clothing, as a part of their skin.
That tattooers are artists is one of Pons' strongest contentions and this he indicates in the care he gives individual creators and their work. Horiyoshi II, the artist most pictured, along with Horihide, of Yokosuka, is at present working in Tokyo's "shitamachi." He uses only hand tools (no electric needles) and natural colors (no aniline dyes), and his iconography is impeccably traditional. (And consequently quite unlike a recent Kansai school that uses modern means and a debased "manga" style.)
In closely describing and picturing this work, Pons also shows that in the last 10 years something like a renaissance has occurred in this craft, which until then was frankly imperiled. Now, in these troubled times, a stronger sense of identity is needed and this is certainly something tattoos give -- they enforce identity. Also, more women are turning to tattoos as a way to something more affirming. Pons shows us a tattoo truth -- it was always a social phenomenon and it still is.
There are many reasons for acquiring this book. It is alternate history and thus an antidote to the many collections of easy generalities about Japan, and it is, with its beautifully textured photographs, one of the most aesthetically pleasing of recent publications. It may be acquired through Editions du Seuil, Rue Jacob 27, F-75006 Paris, France.
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