Product Description

This text offers a treatment of the history, symbolism, and social function of tattooing in Japan, from its earliest beginnings to the present day.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #988326 in Books
• Published on: 1980-07-10
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

Customer Reviews

Richly illustrated hisory of a hidden world
There are very few books on the tradition of irezumi and this book opens the door to a very secret and hidden world. It explains the begins of irezumi/horimono (tattooing) and the developments of this tradition right up to the present day. This book allows the outside world a well informed view of a secret way of life. The photographs are stunning, showing tattoo procedures and various scenes of tattooed people in temple locations, bathhouses etc. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of Japanese Tattooing.

Vital to any westerner serious about Horimono!
This book is exceptionally well written and covers a lot of ground on the socio-political constructs that have contributed to the development of tattooing on Japan. The pictures of the tattoos themselves focus on one particular artist (whose name escapes me at present) and are both beautiful and well complimented by the written content of each chapter.

You will find that there are some topics in this book that have been more recently covered in 'Bushido' and the floating world tattoo books by Horiyoshi III's ex-apprentice Horitaka, however I feel that this book still has a lot of knowledge on offer.

If you are seriously interested in Japanese tattooing then I would throughly recommend this book, it is well written and highly informative (although quite short at approx 110 pages). However, if you are looking for a picture reference book then I would recommend the books by Horitaka stated above. This is due to: a)Richie and Baruma's text focus on the written account of Japanese tattooing..... and B)All the photos in this book are hand tattoed using Tebori, whereas Horiyoshi III's tattoos incorporate machine outlining and are more complex as a result.

Hope this is helpful!