We propose an analysis of the motifs of the marine tattoo and its contemporary evolutions, keeping the relationship between subjectivity and the sea as the main theme. The corpus will consist of illustrations and photographs of bibliographic origin and will be interpreted using, in particular, the tools of semiotic analysis of the visual. The sea has a particular influence on Western tattoos, so much so that it can be considered, in many ways, its founding environment. Several sources, even primary ones, indicate the seafaring subculture as the main vector of the modern spread of tattoos that occurred on horseback between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even in the first half of the twentieth century, especially until the Second World War and before tattoos became mainstream, the greatest experimenters were sailors and military. Norman Collins - known as 'Sailor Jerry' and credited as the main tattoo artist in the 1940s - was the watershed in the history of tattoo art by throwing the prodromes of mass tattooing. Link between the old school of the turn of the century and the new post-war body art, Sailor Jerry played a decisive role in codifying and disseminating the iconography of the sea tattoo that is now labeled as classic and attributed to the so-called old school genre. After a few decades of descent, and after the time of countercultures, the marine tattoo enjoys a new fame also thanks to the vintage boom. The media discourse on tattooing has helped to cement the relationship between tattoo and sea culture and to spread it in the generalist imagination far beyond the boundaries of body art (e.g. Popeye). Overcoming the traditional contrast between old school and new school, the relationship between tattoo and the sea is updated by recent avant-garde interpretations such as those of the Italian artist Pietro Sedda, who connects the classic tattoo repertoire with the cultured arts using remixes and quotes as commonly occurs in contemporary and 'post-modern' arts.

Proponiamo un’analisi dei motivi del tatuaggio marinaresco e delle sue evoluzioni contemporanee mantenenti come tema portante il rapporto tra soggettività e mare. Il corpus sarà composto da illustrazioni e fotografie di provenienza bibliografica e verrà interpretato utilizzando, in particolare, gli strumenti di analisi semiotica del visivo. Il mare ha un ascendente particolare sul tatuaggio occidentale, tanto da poterne essere considerato, per molti versi, l’ambito fondativo. Più fonti, anche primarie , indicano la sottocultura marinaresca come il principale vettore della diffusione moderna dei tatuaggi che avvenne a cavallo tra il Settecento e l’Ottocento. Ancora nella prima metà Novecento, soprattutto fino alla seconda guerra mondiale e prima che i tatuaggi diventassero mainstream, i maggiori sperimentatori furono marinai e militari. A fare da spartiacque nella storia dell’arte tatuatoria gettando i prodromi del tatuaggio di massa fu Norman Collins – noto come ‘Sailor Jerry’ e accreditato come il principale tatuatore negli anni ’40. Anello di congiunzione tra la vecchia scuola di inizio secolo e la nuova body art del dopoguerra, Sailor Jerry ha avuto un ruolo decisivo nel codificare e diffondere l’iconografia del tatuaggio di mare che viene oggi marcata come classica e attribuita al genere cosiddetto old school. Dopo qualche decennio discendente, e superato il momento delle controculture, il tatuaggio marinaresco gode di nuova fama anche anche grazie al boom del vintage. Il discorso mediatico sul tatuaggio ha contribuito a cementare il rapporto tra tatuaggio e cultura di mare e a diffonderlo nell’immaginario generalista ben oltre i confini della body art (si pensi a Popeye). Superando la tradizionale contrapposizione tra old school e new school, il rapporto tra tatuaggio e mare è riattualizzato da recenti interpretazioni avanguardiste come quelle dell’artista italiano Pietro Sedda, che mette in contatto il repertorio classico del tatuaggio con le arti colte ricorrendo a stili combinatori e citazionistici tipiche delle arti contemporanee.

Davide Puca (2018). Storie di mare sulla pelle: dall’old school al contemporaneo. In G. Marrone, T. Migliore (a cura di), Iconologie del tatuaggio. Scritture del corpo e oscillazioni identitarie (pp. 107-135). Milano : Meltemi.

Storie di mare sulla pelle: dall’old school al contemporaneo

Davide Puca
2018-01-01

Abstract

We propose an analysis of the motifs of the marine tattoo and its contemporary evolutions, keeping the relationship between subjectivity and the sea as the main theme. The corpus will consist of illustrations and photographs of bibliographic origin and will be interpreted using, in particular, the tools of semiotic analysis of the visual. The sea has a particular influence on Western tattoos, so much so that it can be considered, in many ways, its founding environment. Several sources, even primary ones, indicate the seafaring subculture as the main vector of the modern spread of tattoos that occurred on horseback between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even in the first half of the twentieth century, especially until the Second World War and before tattoos became mainstream, the greatest experimenters were sailors and military. Norman Collins - known as 'Sailor Jerry' and credited as the main tattoo artist in the 1940s - was the watershed in the history of tattoo art by throwing the prodromes of mass tattooing. Link between the old school of the turn of the century and the new post-war body art, Sailor Jerry played a decisive role in codifying and disseminating the iconography of the sea tattoo that is now labeled as classic and attributed to the so-called old school genre. After a few decades of descent, and after the time of countercultures, the marine tattoo enjoys a new fame also thanks to the vintage boom. The media discourse on tattooing has helped to cement the relationship between tattoo and sea culture and to spread it in the generalist imagination far beyond the boundaries of body art (e.g. Popeye). Overcoming the traditional contrast between old school and new school, the relationship between tattoo and the sea is updated by recent avant-garde interpretations such as those of the Italian artist Pietro Sedda, who connects the classic tattoo repertoire with the cultured arts using remixes and quotes as commonly occurs in contemporary and 'post-modern' arts.
2018
Davide Puca (2018). Storie di mare sulla pelle: dall’old school al contemporaneo. In G. Marrone, T. Migliore (a cura di), Iconologie del tatuaggio. Scritture del corpo e oscillazioni identitarie (pp. 107-135). Milano : Meltemi.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10447/471210
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