Japan

Japan is an island country whose arts of the body include elaborate clothing, theatre makeup and a celebrated tradition of decorative tattooing. Large tattoo designs combine heroes, animals, flowers and water into pictures that follow the body's shape.

In the nineteenth century, Utagawa Kuniyoshi's colourful prints of Suikoden heroes helped popularise dramatic designs. Dragons twisted around limbs, carp moved through waves and flowers filled the spaces between them. The skin became the surface for an entire scene.

This chosen decoration differed from tattoos imposed as punishment. A mark could bring shame in one setting and express courage, taste or devotion in another. Tattooed people were not all members of the same social group.

Portraits of couriers, carriers and other workers show how impressive this art could be. Ceremonial dress, samurai equipment and theatre add other ways of transforming appearance, revealing several different histories behind the dressed and decorated body.