Exploring Engraving, Etching, Wood Cutting, Medieval and Gothic Art in Modern Body Art

Tattoos drawing inspiration from printmaking techniques, including engraving, bring a timeless aesthetic into modern body art. The tattoos themselves are defined by black line work and subtle techniques to create shade and dimensionality. Subjects ranging from flowers and animals to buildings and people give the engraved aesthetic an elastic quality that serves a wide variety of interests. It is where history meets the present, gothic moodiness intersects playful folklore, and Albrecht Dürer's iconic imagery hits the skin. The strong lines, arches, and realistic depictions of people and environment is a perfect vehicle for producing gloriously simple or beautifully complex tattoos. From Medieval-period illustrations of divinity to punk motifs, there is space to translate any idea imaginable through printmaking-inspired techniques. Co:Create artists Maxime Plesci-Buchi, Ant the Elder, and Landon Morgan exemplify the range of engraving and etching inspired tattoos.

The Co:Create Method

Every tattoo style has a range of expressions. At Co:Create, we acknowledged that range, and are focused on three core considerations for describing the tattoo you want: aesthetic, iconography, and technique.

Aesthetic refers to how the tattoo looks. Line weight, color, saturation, movement with the body all contribute to look.

Iconography examines the meaning attached to the tattoo. We describe the cultural, historical, and spiritual connections chosen imagery carries and communicates.

Technique specifies the methods used to. For example, different techniques of shading (whip, dot, drag, etc.) create different levels of depth and dimension. Color layering, color packing, or distinct forms of linework, all contribute to refining the final form of your tattoo.

Discussing these three elements with your artist helps assure you get your dream tattoo.

Iconographic Sources 

Naturally, famous prints from the 15th and 16th century are common starting points for printmaking-inspired tattoos. The realism captured in people and environments, animals and flowers, through direct lifework translate well to skin. The work of German masters Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer are highly influential, with the mix of clean, direct representation and dramatic narrative pieces equally enthralling. Further, woodcut and engraved illustration in picture dictionaries and manuals, provide near endless ideas: Archers, sword fighters, impaled people and hands, bats, devils, archways, flames, and so much more. Further, woodcut illustrations, picture dictionaries and manuals, provide near endless ideas. Sailor art from the 17th, 18th, and 19th century supplies a cache of imagery relating to ships and whaling (and love and loss, etc.), and the techniques of scrimshaw, in particular, are closely associated with engraving and thus provide the same aesthetic punch. The style of historic engraved, wood cut, and etched prints also extends to new drawings and designs which pull in contemporary themes.

Engraving Aesthetics 

Tattoos inspired by engraving and etching exhibit fine black line work, both straight and curved, in the rendering of a design. There is little to no shading, allowing the image to sit two-dimensionally on the skin. Just as with Gothic art, medieval-inspired tattoos play with asymmetry and allow for intriguing interplay with the body.

Engraving Techniques 

Printmaking techniques inclusive of hatching, cross-hatching, stippling are mirrored in the line and dot work of medieval-inspired tattoos. Emphasis is on the clean lines, with the other techniques serving to bring some dimension and a little depth to the image. Unlike shading in black and grey tattoos, the dimension is not about deep volume, instead these tattoos employ more subtle half-tones, just as the historic prints that precede the modern body art.

Contemporary Engraving History 

In the 2000s, tattoo artists began a logical sibling to non-figurative blackwork, privileging strong line work and faithful reproduction, and birthing a new sub-genre of tattooing. Yvonne, at Berlin’s Blut & Eison, was one of the first to use art historical references from mass printing and folk art as subject matter. In contrast, Duncan X, at London’s IntoYou, employed line work with rough approximation to wood cut prints to create blunt, direct figurative tattoos. Removing color but retaining symbolic and narrative meaning, the establishment of engraved, etched, and wood cut print-inspired tattooing presented a natural foil to the bold color and shading of traditional tattoos — which were enjoying a renaissance of popularity.With clear compatibility between wood carving, burin engraving, and etching to tattooing, artists like Duke Riley (focused on sailor-connected Americana) and Maxime Plesci-Buchi (drawing from Central European materials) followed Yvonne and Duncan X in finding, in history, a fresh language for figurative motifs. Artists Davide Mancini, Kajetan Karczewski, Billy Bernert, Martina Oven, Jaime Montalvo, Ryan Hauer, Ianastasiia Istomina, and Lera Volk prove that the aesthetic can produce tattoos that range from dark and moody to delicate beauty.

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Engraving Artists 

Co:Create artists Maxime Plesci-Buchi, Ant the Elder, Landon Morgan