Graffiti

: For the handwriting system, see Graffiti (Palm OS).

History of graffiti

Ancient graffiti

Historically, the term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, etc., found on the walls of ancient sepulchers or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Usage of the word has evolved to include any decorations (inscribed on any surface) that one can regard as vandalism; or to cover pictures or writing placed on surfaces, usually external walls and sidewalks, without the permission of an owner. Thus, inscriptions made by the authors of a monument are not classed as graffiti.

Related Topics:
Inscription - Sepulcher - Catacombs of Rome - Pompeii - Vandalism

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The first known example of "modern style" graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey) and appears to advertise prostitution, according to the tour guides of the city. It stands near the long mosaic and stone walkway and consists of a handprint, a vaguely heart-like shape, a footprint and a number. This purportedly indicates how many steps one would have to take to find a lover, with the handprint indicating payment.

Related Topics:
Ephesus - Turkey - Advertise - Prostitution - Mosaic

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The Romans carved graffiti into their own walls and monuments, and examples of their work also exist in Egypt. The eruption of Vesuvius preserved graffiti carved on the walls of Pompeii, and they offer us a direct insight into street life: everyday Latin, insults, magic, love declarations, political consigns. Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli also has several examples. One example has even survived that warns: "Cave Canem", which translates as "Beware of the dog," next to a picture of the dog in question.

Related Topics:
Romans - Egypt - Vesuvius - Latin - Magic - Hadrian - Tivoli

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However not only Greeks and Romans produced graffiti: the Mayan site of Tikal in Guatemala, also contains ancient examples. Viking graffiti survive in Rome and at Newgrange Mound in Ireland, and Varangians carved their runes in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The ancient Irish inscribed stones with an alphabet called Ogham -- this standard mode of writing may not fall into the category of graffiti. Ironically, there are even examples in American history, like Signature Rock (a national landmark), along the Oregon Trail.

Related Topics:
Mayan - Tikal - Guatemala - Viking - Rome - Newgrange Mound - Ireland - Varangian - Rune - Hagia Sophia - Constantinople - Ogham - Oregon Trail

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Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic in the 1790s.

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Art forms like frescoes and murals involve leaving images and writing on wall surfaces. Like the prehistoric wall paintings created by cave dwellers, they do not comprise graffiti, as the artists generally produce them with the explicit permission (and usually support) of the owner or occupier of the walls.

Related Topics:
Fresco - Mural - Wall paintings

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Modern graffiti

In the 20th century, especially during World War II, 'Kilroy was here' became a famous graffito, along with Mr. Chad, a face with only the eyes and a nose hanging over the wall, saying "What No ??" during the time of rationing. Twentieth century warfare saw the advent of many new aviation technologies, closely followed by the advent of airplane graffiti, including the nose art made famous during World War II.

Related Topics:
World War II - Kilroy was here - Mr. Chad - Rationing - Aviation - Airplane graffiti - Nose art

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Starting with the large-scale urbanization of many areas in the post-war half of the 20th century, urban gangs would mark walls and other pieces of public property with the name of their gang (a "tag") in order to mark the gang's territory. Near the end of the 20th century, non-gang-related tagging became more common, practised for its own sake. Graffiti artists would sign their "tags" for the sake of doing so and sometimes to increase their reputation and prestige as a "writer" or a graffiti artist.

Related Topics:
Gang - Writer

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Taggers sometimes select tags, like screennames, to reflect some personal qualities. Some tags also contain subtle and often cryptic messages. The year in which the piece was created, and in some cases the writer's initials or other letters, sometimes become a part of the tag. In some cases, "writers" dedicate or create tags or graffiti in memory of a deceased friend, for example: "DIVA Peekrevs R.I.P. JTL '99".

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In some cases, taggers have achieved such elaborate graffiti (especially those done in memory of a deceased person) on storefront gates that shopkeepers have hesitated to clean them off. In the Bronx after the death of rapper Big Pun, several murals dedicated to his life appeared virtually overnight; similar outpourings occurred after the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.

Related Topics:
The Bronx - Rapper - Big Pun - The Notorious B.I.G. - Tupac Shakur

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Other works covering otherwise unadorned fences or walls may likewise become so highly elaborate that property-owners or the government may choose to keep them rather than cleaning them off. The wall in front of Abbey Road Studios in London became a favorite spot for Beatles-related graffiti once the band had recorded there in the 1960s: visitors from all over the world have left inscriptions in various languages. The studio makes no attempt to stop this graffiti; it has the wall repainted regularly, but only to provide a fresh surface for inscriptions.

Related Topics:
Abbey Road Studios - London - Beatles - Language

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Some graffiti has local or regional resonance, such as wall and street sign tagging in Southern California by gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips. The name Cool "Disco" Dan (including the quotation marks) occurs commonly in the Washington, D.C. area. One famous graffito in the DC Metro area appeared on the outer loop of the beltway on a railroad bridge near the Mormon temple as seen here. Its simple scrawl "Surrender Dorothy" summoned visions of the Emerald City of Oz and has remained on the bridge for nearly 30 years off and on beginning in late 1973. Pressure from the Temple saw it removed, only to reappear. This "" became so well known among the Mormon community that their newsletters often mentioned it as a specific example demonstrating misunderstanding. (See "In View of Temple, Graffiti Again Seeks Dorothy's Surrender" and "Landmark to most, temple is sanctuary for area's Mormons" in Mormons Today.)

Related Topics:
Southern California - Bloods - Crips - Cool "Disco" Dan - Washington, D.C. - DC Metro - Beltway - Mormon temple - Emerald City - Oz - 1973

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Theories on and the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism of 1961.

Related Topics:
Avant-garde - Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism - 1961

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Some of those who practise graffiti art wish to distance themselves from gang graffiti. Differences in both form and intent exist: graffiti art (its practitioners claim) aims at self-expression and creativity, and may involve highly stylized letter-forms drawn with markers, or cryptic and colorful spray paint murals on walls, buildings, and even freight trains. Graffiti artists strive to improve their art, which constantly changes and progresses. Gang graffiti, on the other hand, functions to mark territorial boundaries, and therefore does not transcend a gang's neighborhood; it does not (in the eyes of lovers of graffiti-art) presuppose artistic intent.

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The designs, while chosen to appear distinctive and recognizable, are more likely to be influenced by the speed with which a tagger can execute them (thus minimizing the chance of that tagger getting caught). Those who distinguish between tagging and graffiti generally accept tagging as gang-motivated or meant as vandalism (illegal) or viewed as too vulgar or controversial to have public value, while they can view graffiti as creative expression, whether charged with political meaning or not.

Related Topics:
Tagging - Gang

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Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or in the achievement of a political goal.

Related Topics:
Public art - Netherlands - Emancipation

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The murals of Belfast and of Los Angeles http://rpmurals.home.att.net/ offer another example of official recognition. In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically and/or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus of addressing cleavages in the long run.

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Terminology

A number of words and phrases have come to describe different styles and aspects of graffiti:

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• tag - a stylized signature; the terms tagger and writer refer to a person who "tags"
• piece (from "masterpiece") - a large image, often with 3-D effects, arrows giving flow and direction, many colours and colour-transitions and various other effects. A piece needs more time than a throw-up. If placed in a difficult location and well executed it will earn the writer more respect
• throw-up - not a piece, but more of a large tag. It often has an outline (like black) and a fill-colour (like silver). Easy-to-paint bubble-shapes often form the letters
• bombing (as in the phrases to bomb or to hit) has no connection with terrorism, but describes painting many surfaces. Throw-ups often serve for this, since they don't require much time to execute
• crew or cru has become the standard collective noun for a group of writers or graffiti-artists, which can but are not limited to be part of gangs or can be associated with them for funding for materials, and sometimes protection from police and people who might not want graffiti on a certain wall while doing the piece. It is a common misconception that crews are gangs, since they are groups which break the law. However, crews can be founded in order to not be associated with gangs.
• writers become up when their work becomes widespread and well-known. To "get up" in a city involves both tagging, bombing and making good pieces
• to slash somebody's tag (to put a line through, or tag over it) counts as a deep insult.
• the phrase back to back refers to a graffiti that covers a wall from end to end, as seen on some parts of the West-Berlin side of the Berlin Wall. Similarly, trains sometimes receive end to end painting.
• window-down and top-to-bottom pieces on subway trains cover the bottom half, or the whole height, respectively, of the car. A top-to-bottom, end-to-end production is called a whole-car. A production with several writers might cover a whole-train.
• burner - typically a large, elaborate piece, more elaborate than a normal piece. It refers to the piece "burning" out of the wall or trainside. Burners often originate legally, because of the time and effort put into them, but the great early writers of New York also did burners illegally on trains.
• insides are tags or bombs done inside trains, trams, or buses. In 1970s New York, there was as much graffiti inside the subway trains as outside, and the same is true of some cities today (like Rome, Italy and Melbourne, Australia). While prolific, insides are often less artistic and are seldom documented.
• going over - (go over) if a writer goes over or tags upon another writer's piece, it is the same as declaring war against the opponent writer. Most writers respect others' work, and the basic rules for replacing other creations are in this order: tag - throwup - piece. If someone breaks this order, the person is considered being a toy or generally an annoyance.
• toy - an inexperienced or unskilled writer. Graffiti pros use this as a derogatory term for new writers in the scene.
• king - inside or outside kings are writers with a certain amount of respect among other writers. To own the inside means you have most tags inside trains, and to own the outside means having most pieces on the train surface.
• buffing - (to buff) to remove a graffiti-painting with chemicals and other instruments.

Informal competition sometimes exists between taggers as to who can put up the most, or the most visible or artistic tags (see the section below titled Graffiti art battle). Writers with the most tags up tend to gain respect among other graffiti artists, although they will also incur a greater risk if caught by authorities.

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To gain notoriety, and make pieces difficult to remove, graffiti artists will sometimes paint hard-to-reach spots such as rooftops. Such heavens pieces (also commonly known as giraffiti), by the nature of the spot often pose dangerous challenges to execute.

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Another technique sometimes referred to as "scratchitti" involves making purposely hard-to-remove graffiti by scratching or etching a tag into an object, generally using a key or another sharp object such as a knife, stone, ceramic drill bit, or diamond tipped Dremel bit. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness determines which stones or other objects will scratch what surfaces.

Related Topics:
Etching - Key - Knife - Diamond - Dremel - Mohs scale of mineral hardness

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"Etch" can also refer to the use of acid solutions intended for creating frosted glass to write on windows.

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