Artful bodypainting

To create bodypaintings, colors are directly laid on the skin itself. You may call it body design, if you like. While some very appealing paintings only last on the skin for a few hours, henna tattoos, for example, can last for several weeks. Actually, painting the skin is nothing new. Stone age people already painted their bodies using different colours. Ochre, black manganese oxides and charcoal were favourite materials at that time. Animal hairs were tied to sticks and then used as brushes. There were other techniques where paint was laid on the skin by hand. In former times, pigments were derived from differently coloured soil. In order to make sure that the paint was easy to spread and to last on naked skin, binders like water or oil were added. Indians attached great importance to bodypainting. Therefore, single individuals in certain groups were judged and classified according to the way their bodies were painted. In the western world of today, circus clowns were the first people who wore bodypaintings. In our modern western society, bodypainting has been known since the nineteen-sixties. Bodypainting became en vogue again. The body as human canvas figured as a symbol of a freedom-oriented lifestyle in the first place.

Mostly, bodypaintings were worn by hippies at that time.

Even today, society is still passionately discussing the role of bodypainting: Could attractive paintings on naked bodies be really called serious art? Anyway, it is a fact that this way of artfully decorating naked skin definetely has something to do with art. And that it has something erotic about it. A beautifully built female body looks much more attractive than a body which is only naked.