Contemporary art is diverse, and body painting is becoming one of the types, which is increasingly occupying a position in the ways of people’s self-expression. The least traumatic and the most aesthetic and artistic is body painting with special paints. But body painting is not limited only to drawings. These are tattoos, piercings, scarring and modifications, that is, the inclusion, implantation of various elements into the body. The cultural direction became more recent, in the 60s of the last century. But it originated in ancient times. What is body painting on the body? Why is it needed, how does it affect people’s self-expression and where is it used?
A little bit of history
In ancient times, our ancestors painted their bodies for camouflage and to blend in with the environment when they went hunting. In some tribes, such art had a sacred meaning when serving pagan gods and spirits. Among other peoples - to intimidate enemies, attract good luck, and protect against various evil spirits.
Many religious movements to this day use drawings on the skin in preparation for their ceremonies, for example Hindu movements. But in the tribes of Africa, body painting on a naked body means one or another hierarchical position or simply the stages of a boy’s growing up. Tattoos, incisions that turn into scars, can show how resilient a young person is when these operations are performed on him. In other cases it is a special sign of a man and a designation of his functions in the tribe.
Over time, body painting on the body lost its popularity and was later revived in the civilized world, when sailors, sailing on ships, began to talk about the customs and culture of different countries and peoples. This type of art gained particular popularity in the middle of the last century, when it began to take on unusual forms.
Man body painting
With the development of show business, male body painting on the body is becoming more and more in demand. Theatrical performances, sports competitions, presentation of clothing collections, photo shoots and advertising - this is an incomplete list of events where a representative of the stronger sex can show off the remarkable relief of their muscles. As a powerful advertising weapon with lethal force, body painting on a man’s body rightfully takes its place in shaping the status of leading brands and companies in the fashion world.
Modern body painting
With the advent of various technologies, body painting as an art began to be used in nail painting and championships in hairdressing skills. The flourishing was facilitated by the fact that various informal movements entered the world, for which taboos and some previously imposed stereotypes by society were broken. The body as an object of cult began to be modified by certain subcultures. Creative youth brought a fresh spirit, and this art in its most exaggerated forms has become quite commonplace in everyday life to such an extent that it no longer shocks or even surprises anyone.
There are several different body painting techniques, from the most innocuous to the hardcore. The body is changed by implanting various devices and elements into it, which may carry the symbolism of the subculture to which this or that individual belongs.
Drawing on the body with vegetable paints
The most common technique - painting body parts - involves the use of natural dyes. Body painting is body painting and should not be confused with body painting in general. Drawings on the face, hands, and torso are directly related to arts and crafts, design, makeup, and photography. Even modern psychology offers an unusual technique for correcting the state of mind by drawing masks on the face.
The pattern or ornament of ordinary henna, borrowed from Indian culture, is very beautiful and attractive. The pattern may look like a simple ligature of leaves on the fingers, hands, and ankles. It is not harmful at all and will wash off in a couple of weeks. Exotic body painting on girls’ bodies looks very beautiful and is attractive to men.
A real work of art is drawings on the body with gouache or makeup, manually or using an airbrush. There is no limit to the artist's imagination. A specialist can express his vision of the world in a wide variety of forms, varying simple and the most unexpected and complex drawings. Unusual painting in soft colors is often ordered by brides on the eve of the wedding. Expectant mothers before the birth of their baby look very cute when they want to capture their condition in a photo shoot and turn to the artist. Body painting looks especially fun on a woman’s body when a balloon or Mickey Mouse is depicted on an already large tummy.
Tattoos
The belief that tattoos are done only by criminals who want to indicate their hierarchical position in places not so remote has long since sunk into oblivion. The complex technique has acquired a more civilized appearance, and now various designs on the body can be seen on both men and the beautiful body of women.
Unlike painting with paints, a tattoo will remain on the skin forever, because a special needle is used here. With small point movements, the master drives paint into the body, injuring the skin. In a specialized salon, a tattoo artist can apply any desired design to the client. At the same time, all precautions and sanitary standards are observed. Recently, masters have achieved high professionalism, imprinting real works of art of high quality on the body.
Piercing
Back in the day, pirates pierced their ears and wore earrings. Until recently, ear decorations were the privilege of only women. Now the fashion for piercing has spread to the stronger sex. They began to make punctures wherever possible: in the nose, eyebrows, lips, navels and even nipples and genitals. This body painting on the body is very reminiscent of customs, but instead of earrings, wooden sticks were inserted.
Scarification, implantation and modification
Perhaps this is the most traumatic type of body painting. But this in no way discourages, and even attracts those clients who want to modify their body. Sometimes this takes the most grotesque and frightening forms. It should be remembered that returning everything to its original form is very difficult, and sometimes impossible.
Scarification is practically an operation during which deep cuts of a selected shape and configuration are applied to the body. After the wounds heal, scars will remain and the desired pattern will appear. This technique requires a person to have great willpower, endurance and patience. Mostly men decide to undergo this procedure. The stereotype that scars are decorative is true here, which is why male body painting on the body remains so popular. One of the subtypes of scarring is branding, when a pattern is burned into the skin with a hot object.
There are no limits to human imagination! Split (cutting the tongue in half), tunnels in the earlobes, changing the upper shape of the ears in the form of a point, like fairy-tale elves, and so on, the list of body modifications can be long. All these are quite painful operations that require special skill.
A very extraordinary body painting on the body, which involves the implantation of various implants under the skin, is implantation. The specialist makes a cut and inserts balls, rings made of steel, Teflon or silicone into it. Afterwards, neat stitches are applied, and when everything heals, the objects create the desired pattern. The most exotic implants are “horns” under the scalp, which are made by very brutal men who want to impress others.
Body art– a phrase borrowed from the English language. The term is translated as “body art”. That is, the concept is comprehensive and indicates many things that transform the external nature of a person. Implants, branding, scarring and tattoos are all part of body painting.
Body painting is also part of it. In the West it is called body painting. But in Russia the term has not caught on - it is difficult to remember and is not associated with drawings on the body. Therefore, in our country they are designated as body art, without taking into account the other facets of this concept. To be fair, we will consider all aspects of the art of the body.
Tattoo as part of the art of body painting
A classic tattoo differs from body painting in terms of service life. Conventional body painting is superficial and easily washed off. Pigments for tattoos penetrate inside the cells, where they remain for life. Some paints may wash out or fade in the sun. But the general contours of the picture and color spots will remain.
They persist even after a person’s death if the body is mummified. So, in 1948, Sergei Rudenko found several embalmed bodies on the border with China. A Russian archaeologist discovered multiple ones on the remains. The bodies were sent for analysis and it was found that they were about 2,400 years old.
So it already existed then body art. painting It was applied not with needles, but with pointed sticks. This technique was also used in Egypt. On its territory they found a tattooed mummy, whose age is about 4,000 years. The priestess of one of the ancient temples, in which she was buried, used her body as a canvas.
Some modern ones will not provide any information to future archaeologists. The point is not even that the culture of mummification of bodies has been lost, but that the drawings simply will not be preserved. Many designs of the 21st century can no longer be called tattoos. Masters do not use needles. The skin is colored with brushes.
Natural coloring pigments are used, for example, henna. It seeps into the cells, but not deeply. Within a couple of weeks after application, the patterns disappear, are washed off with water and go away along with dead epidermal cells. This is the name of the top layer of skin. Temporary tattoos are a kind of transition from baudiart to body painting.
Body painting as part of body art
Body painting is not inferior to ancient times. Suffice it to recall the wild tribes of Africa and the Indians of North America, who applied frightening “make-up” before hunting and battles. Often, not the whole body was painted, but only the face. This direction of painting is called face art. The art of face painting is closely related to the field of makeup.
It's no secret that make-up sometimes requires masking some elements on the face. For example, makeup artists cover up redness with green concealer. In the color wheel, grassy tones are located opposite red ones, neutralizing them. Apply regular foundation on top and... you get perfect skin.
Naked body art, that is, painting a naked body, also requires some kind of disguise. The video below has an age limit of 18+, so if you are under the age of majority, do not press the play button. By clicking on it you confirm that you are over 18 years old.
Not everyone dares to appear before the master, so to speak, in all his glory. Therefore, silicone stickers are used. They are attached with glue, covering secondary sexual characteristics, for example, nipples. The surface of the overlays is designed for easy paint distribution and rapid hardening. The color of the stickers matches the skin, does not stand out on the body and does not spoil body art
Photo Special stickers are usually offered by foreign stores. Bodypainting is most developed in the West and America. There is a salon procedure, there are a lot of competitions with substantial prizes. In Russia there was an attempt to organize a national championship, but in 2002 it was canceled.
The phenomenon was partially explained nudists. Body art for them it is their favorite “clothing”. But in Russia the climate is not conducive to nudism or body painting. But in the same states there are thousands of nudist communities. Therefore, the service is in demand “ body art". Video professional works are posted online and included in a portfolio.
Worldwide body art association has existed since 2001. The best masters who are listed in the organization are foreigners. Famous Italian Johannes Stetter. He is not only an artist, but also the organizer of a folk group. The man’s musical preferences are reflected in many of his works. The paintings are original and full of mysticism.
Master Cho-San is famous in Japan. She specializes in the visual merging of people with nature. Models are set against the backdrop of mountains, forests, interiors and painted to match them. As a rule, professional fashion models act as “canvases”. It is not easy for an ordinary person to stand for 5-6 hours. But, you get an artistic masterpiece for free, and sometimes an additional payment for your work.
In the USA they are ready to pose for free if James Kuhn draws. Only this master doesn’t need models. A man paints himself. Specializes in body art on the face, your own. Jame depicts self-portraits, but modifies his appearance—he appears in the form of a boar, or a shaman. There are already almost 400 works captured in the photo.
Scarring as part of body art
Body art – body painting and... it doesn’t matter what it’s made of. Scarring is the creation of patterns with blades. In ancient times, glass shards and sharp stones were used. Evidence of scarification is almost 5,000 years old. The technique was invented by African tribes. On dark-skinned bodies they are not visible, but compositions of scars are noticeable.
They are voluminous, so they catch the eye. By the way, to make the scars more convex, they use the juices of poisonous plants. They are poured onto deep cuts. Previously, the technique was used everywhere, but now only some women in Sudan use it.
Scarification is included in body art Buy The service is also available under the name scarification. This is the official name of the technique, also coming from the English language. The term is not popular, and the phenomenon is not popular either. According to statistics, out of 100 people with only 1-2 also undergo scarring.
Firstly, there are few smart craftsmen. Secondly, the pain during the procedure is strong, and in order for the drawing to look impressive, large areas of the body must be involved. So, most people choose the usual body art Women Scarification is especially rare.
Implantation as a type of body art
Implantation is a concept made up of two Latin words - “inside” and “I plant.” Initially, the term was medical. But gradually implantation became part of the trend body art Photos confirm that it is possible to push metal balls and silicone molds under the skin for the sake of beauty. Many people find this beauty controversial, but such is all modern art. It is intended to shock, make you think, worry, and not just enjoy the ideality of the images.
So instead of body art paints implants are taken. They can be round, in the form of bagels, stars, pyramids. You can choose any variations and create a composition from them. Some, for example, ask for horns on the forehead. Others want spikes sticking out of their fingers, like brass knuckles.
The parts can be left under the skin, or partially brought out. It all depends on the wishes of the client who has chosen an unusual body art Women photos, as a rule, are laid out with stars and devil horns. Men prefer to radically change their appearance, for example, greatly enlarging one of the frontal lobes. Bodypainting video The video below will clearly show how implants are installed, but I would like to warn you that this spectacle is not for the faint of heart.
Branding as types of body art
Officially, the procedure is called branding. It is believed that the movement has its origins in the slave system. In it, special signs were applied to the workers’ bodies, indicating that the people were slaves. The drawings were made with hot iron seals. This is the technique of applying patterns even now. So, branding is not included in the list " pregnant body art" The pain is such that involuntary contraction of the internal muscles can occur, and this is one of the causes of miscarriages.
If body art body painting on photo, as a rule, is planar, then branding gives convex patterns. When the redness and scabs from burns go away, thick, voluminous lines remain. They are a little lighter than the rest of the skin, not . Therefore, to highlight the drawings, many take sunbathing.
Branding is rarely included in the category " porn body art" The sight of human suffering excites few. The procedure is painful and the healing of burns is painful. You have to refrain from scratching and constantly treat the wounds with antiseptics.
The French actress Jeanne Moreau has a wonderful aphorism: “We have so many words for the state of the soul, and so few for the state of the body.” Seeing the works of a famous American artist Craig Tracy the thought creeps in that this master of body art managed to find the necessary forms to express the state of human bodies. His paintings are an amazing world that comes to life on the naked bodies of models and blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction.
On the website Culturology.ru we have repeatedly written about the works. Most often he turns to creation. Just look at the image created in defense of endangered animals!
Creating paintings is a painstaking and time-consuming task. Craig needs several days to plan what the future work of art will look like, and another 9 hours to apply the drawing to the body. Craig often uses the model's body to bring his vision to life, but sometimes he uses the environment as a backdrop to emphasize the depth of the image.
Craig has been creative since childhood. His family photo album contains many photographs of his family at Mardi Gras, one of the largest costume parties in the world. In his youth, Craig painted a lot of paintings, but the boundaries of traditional art were always tight for him. That is why he turned to the technique of airbrushing, applying paint to any surface. First there were faces, and then there were bodies. For more than twenty years, the artist has been painting the bodies of models not only with a brush, but also using an airbrush.
Craig admits that he is often inspired to create a painting by a specific person or even a certain pose. Each of his works carries a great intellectual load, it reflects a certain aspect of culture or captures enchanting pictures of nature. The artist avoids working with the same model twice, since each new body serves as a source of inspiration for him. The exception is paintings in which only some parts of the model’s body were involved - arms, legs or face. The master of body art emphasizes that each new body for him is akin to a new unknown adventure.
Countess Vera Gottlieb Anna von Lehndorff, better known in the fashion world as Veruschka, became famous not only as one of the first highly paid supermodels, but also how creative body art artist. She became the author and at the same time the model of extraordinary, bright, memorable works of art painted on her own body. Verushka knew how to merge with nature and become part of the landscape - even a piece of rusty iron or a tattered wall. At that time they wrote no less about her talent for transformation than about her unconventional beauty.
Her talents were versatile: she not only posed for glossy magazines, but also wrote scripts, acted in films, and, perhaps, her acting abilities played an important role in her experiments with body art. With equal ease, she became part of living nature, transforming into wild animals, and took the form of inanimate objects, merging with stones or a concrete wall.
The first experiments with body art began in 1966, when Veruschka traveled with photographer Peter Berg to Africa for a photo shoot. Then she took black shoe polish and smeared it on her face and body. This is where it all started. Wildlife evoked the most daring associations: “I painted myself like animals and plants, for example, a face in the shape of a leaf,” Veruschka recalls about her first body art photo shoot.
In 1978, experiments with body art continued in Mozambique. The meeting with the artist Holger Trulsch became a turning point in the life of the model. Together they created new images: “During our work together, my body became a canvas. I turned into a living sculpture,” says Veruschka. Preparing paints of the desired color could take the whole day, a lot of time was spent on makeup - from 10 to 12 hours. By choosing the most similar paint color, they achieved the visual effect of body transparency.
The artist and the model were especially attracted to damaged materials and rusty surfaces - against the background of these imperfections, the ideal lines of a naked female body looked surreal and bewitching. “We were attracted to traces of the transitory. It is everywhere and everywhere. Nothing lasts forever. I am after the transitory,” the model explains the concept of their work.
Critics saw in these works a thirst to go beyond the boundaries of the human body, to overcome form and boundaries, to dissolve in the world, to be naked to the point of disintegration and decomposition of the body, to become naked matter. It’s probably difficult to say more precisely about this unusual body art.
The Austrian city of Klagenfurt am Wörthersee hosted the World Bodypainting Festival, which annually attracts about 30 thousand spectators. Previously, the festival was held in the city of Pörtschach am Wörther See, but this year the organizers decided to change the location. The festival traditionally attracts the best masters of body art from about 50 countries around the world, who use the human body as a canvas to realize their amazing ideas.
Last Friday in Austria, on Lake Wörth, the three-day World Bodypainting Festival began, in which more than 300 artists from 45 countries took part.
Participants competed in different painting techniques: “Brush”, “Sponge”, “Airbrush”, “Special Effects”. As part of the festival, various exhibitions and parties were organized, where guests danced in spectacular costumes and outfits painted on the body.
28-year-old designer and fashion designer Kay Pike from Calgary, Canada, knows how to transform into superheroes and supervillains using body painting. The girl says that particularly complex “transformations” take her about 15 hours and about $150 for paint.
The girl first tried body painting in December 2015, when she transformed herself into a character from the manga “Attack on Titan.”
Photographer and artist John Poppleton creates fantastic works of art that combine the beauty of the female form with the splendor of nature. On the backs of naked girls, he paints landscapes with luminescent colors, as if they were sunsets, sunrises, oceans, mountain ranges, shimmering lights and even space. All this looks mystical and fascinating.
We could not even imagine that body art could be like this.
Friends and acquaintances of Natalie Fletcher know firsthand what it means to completely merge with nature. The fact is that Natalie is a talented artist who paints landscapes on human bodies that allow people to become one with Mother Nature.
Makeup artist and body painter Emma Fay, 27, who moved to Leicester last year, has wowed the world with her Spider work, which has gone viral around the world. These are Faye's latest works, where she transforms talented acrobats into artistic canvases depicting living creatures, objects and landscapes.
Large blue-ringed octopus
Emma Hack is an artist, photographer and virtuoso body painter. She turns nude models into chameleons, merging with the surrounding space, in particular, with the wallpaper. You can see the contours of the body if you look closely. The Australian artist similarly painted the singer and musician Gotye in the video for the song Somebody That I Used To Know.
When art and human plasticity merge, a miracle is born.
The human body is a perfect canvas. Its beauty and plasticity make it possible to create a work of art directly on your hands and feet. It’s especially cool when an artist manages to create not just a beautiful drawing, but a visual illusion. As a result, a person simply cannot be distinguished from some flamingo.
We have collected for you 20 cool examples of body art that prove that man and nature are one.
Pink flamingo
Vancouver photographer Spencer Kovats created an unusual series of photographs showing people whose bodies are covered with tattoos. If you meet such a person in clothes, you will not think that there is a painted body underneath.
