Stamping out the persistent myths and misconceptions about tattoos

I'm an academic art historian specialising in the history of tattooing as an artistic practice, and so I was delighted to read Jonathan Jones's article in the Guardian last weekend, in which the august and erudite art critic took time out from covering old master exhibitions in order to cast his eye over the work on display at the London Tattoo Convention down at Tobacco Dock in Wapping. It's all too rare that anyone, let alone the mainstream media, take this old, proud practice seriously in artistic terms.

I was somewhat less delighted, though, to read some of the rather blunt comments which the article spurred. Whenever an article about tattooing appears, the same few comments seem to crop up. They are, for the most part, founded on an unsophisticated conception of the history, culture and practice of tattooing in the west. I want to tackle some of these myths head on. Misconceptions are tenacious things – some of them are over 100 years old!

Myth: Tattoos were confined to sailors, bikers, criminals and degenerates until only very recently

Truth: Vanity Fair reported in January 1926 that:

By the time of the Great Depression in America, anthropologist Albert Parry was reporting that top tattooists' best clients – lawyers, bankers and doctors – could no longer afford to get work, leaving tattooists forced to shout for work outside their shops like market traders! Even before then, tattooing had been all the rage in Victorian London, with finely ornamented tattoo studios at rarefied addresses like Jermyn Street playing host to society girls and wealthy aristocrats.

Most of the European royals of the late 19th century were tattooed, inspired by the fashionable Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. It's rumoured that Winston Churchill was tattooed, too, and his mother certainly was.

Myth: 'You'll never get a real job', and 'tattoos are associated only with those in unskilled professions'

Truth: While it is of course true that having tattoos, particularly visible ones, may well impede your chances of employment in certain careers, it is certainly not the case that being tattooed is a sure impediment to even blue-chip careers. This was as true in the 1930s as it is today: there are heavily tattooed scientists at Nasa and heavily tattooed lawyers. There are heavily tattooed heart surgeons and heavily tattooed academics, of which I am but one. There are even heavily tattooed media moguls (James Murdoch is tattooed) – though perhaps calling that a "real job" is pushing the definition too far.

Myth: There is a link between being tattooed and being of low intelligence, or even of mental impairment

Truth: Often, this myth becomes somewhat self-defeatingly circular – having a tattoo is taken as a de facto sign of mental issues. There is no good evidence between tattooing and low (or even high) intelligence among the general population. Studies among specific populations – usually prisoners – have reported variously that tattooed inmates are both of higher and of lower intelligence than non-tattooed controls.

Certain mental health conditions may manifest themselves in a desire to self-mutilate (which may include tattooing), but there's no demonstrable link between tattoos and mental health issues in general. This is likely even less true when you consider the work Jonathan encountered at the convention, acquired over years of sittings and requiring considerable investment.

Myth: Tattoos will look awful when you're 80, and you'll regret them when you're older

Truth: Harris polls taken in America in 2003 and 2008 found that a steady 84% of people with tattoos did not regret them. Of those who did regret, most rued that they had gotten a tattoo too young, with many also stating that their tattoo was poorly executed, or that they picked the wrong design.

This strikes me not as an admonishment of tattooing in general, but of hastily acquired, impulsive tattoos done by unskilled artists. The myth that tattoos will look "green" or "faded" once the wearer reaches the autumn of their lives comes from the fact that tattoos on older people today were done decades ago, when inks, machines, needles and healing technologies were all vastly inferior to those we have today.

Fluid dynamics researcher Ian Eames did design a mathematical model predicting the loss of smaller details over the course of about 10-15 years, though noted that the likely divergence of a properly executed tattoo was "millimetres".

It comes down to this, in my opinion: tattooing is fundamentally an art form like any other. It's basically pictures on a surface. Some of it is wonderful, timeless, well-executed, interesting, affective and beautiful. Some of it is poor, shoddy, badly done, ill-conceived and, to my eyes, ugly. Some artists and some collectors are crazier than others, a story common among the practitioners and patrons of all the fine arts.

I just wish we could finally move discussions about tattoos on to these aesthetic, artistic questions rather than resorting to counterfactual and ill-informed assertions about the social status, mental health or criminal intentions of the tattooed.

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