ROMANTIC TATTOO ART: HUMAN LIBERATION

ABSTRACT

In the era of consumption, the development of romantic art signifies the arrival of artistic and aesthetic mass living. Firstly, the globalization of cultural, technological, and economic exchanges has had a contemporary impact on embodied aesthetics (bodily aesthetics) and historical research on human development. Secondly, the aestheticization of public life has arrived, and people will pay more attention to the aestheticization of daily life. People's aesthetics have surpassed utilitarianism to a certain extent. After recognizing the meaning of their own existence, people give more attention to the "complete person" and human nature, thus achieving the comprehensive development and freedom of individuals. Maintaining one's own nature, that is, the pursuit of "Dao" and truth, goodness, and beauty, has always driven people to constantly practice and explore.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В эпоху потребления развитие романтического искусства знаменует собой массовый приход к художественному и эстетическому образу жизни. Во-первых, глобализация культурных, технологических и экономических обменов оказала современное влияние на эстетику тела и исторические исследования человеческого развития. Во-вторых, наступила эстетизация общественной жизни, вследствие чего люди будут уделять больше внимания идеализации повседневной жизни. Эстетика людей в определенной степени превзошла утилитаризм. Осознав смысл собственного существования, люди уделяют больше внимания "целостной личности" и человеческой природе, добиваясь, таким образом, всестороннего развития и свободы личности. Сохранение своей собственной природы, то есть стремление к "Дао", истине, добру и красоте, всегда побуждало людей постоянно практиковать и исследовать.

Keywords: Romantic art; Tattoo; Human liberation.

Ключевые слова: романтическое искусство, татуировка, освобождение человека.

Section 1 The meaning of romantic art

The form of romantic art is determined by the essence of the content that art aims to express [3, p. 577]. This inherently infinite and absolutely universal thing is a negation of all particularity, a simple unity between oneself and oneself. It dissolves all differentiation between each other, all natural processes and their cycles of birth, death, and reproduction, as well as all limitations of spiritual existence. It decomposes all special gods into the pure infinite self and its unity [3, p. 579]. The gods of romantic art are able to see things, know themselves, possess inner subjectivity, and showcase their inner lives to the audience [3, p. 581]. Therefore, in romantic art, the element of divinity is greatly reduced. Therefore, romantic art allows external things to flow freely, allowing all materials, including flowers, plants, and daily furniture, to appear in the artwork in their natural form [3, p. 586].

The consumer era, as a new social form and cultural context, brings extremely complex and profound psychological changes to people. The reason why human society faces such a cultural form is, to some extent, determined by the changes in survival status. So, whether it is exaggerating the drawbacks of a consumer society or exaggerating its role, it is not a scientific and objective cultural stance and attitude. We should re-examine the profound changes that have occurred or may occur in art production in the consumer era, based on the objectivity of historical choices and the value dimension that is conducive to the comprehensive development of human beings, in order to make objective analysis and judgment on the value choices and changes that art production will face [7, p. 149].

Section 2. Embodied Aesthetics and Tattoo Techniques

The globalization of the economy often drives the integration of cultural thinking, aesthetic taste, and even the cloning of artistic products. This is actually a common imitation behavior. Behind all these consumption phenomena is the development of communication and technology in modern society, which has led to the circulation of cultural information in a very short period of time. Therefore, from the mythological era to the era of rationality, art and culture have not been widely spread and are regional in nature. In the era of consumption, with the driving force of globalization, a universal identity anxiety and crisis have emerged at the level of national culture and values; The comprehensive promotion of globalization towards social life, political culture, and other fields has led to increasing anxiety and concerns about whether literary and artistic forms can continue to survive [7, p. 155].

Schusterman provided a temporary definition of body aesthetics: "The critical and improved study of a person's body - as a place of sensory aesthetic appreciation and creative self shaping - experience and function [13, p. 529]. Body aesthetics focuses on the study of the aesthetic relationship between individuals and their own bodies through art. The human body is a material existence of the natural body, as well as a product and crystallization of human production.

The main goal of embodied aesthetics is to enhance our bodily cognition, enrich our bodily experiences, improve our bodily performance and the realization of our own style, rather than just maintaining an abstract form of philosophical aesthetics. From an external perspective, embodied aesthetics can perfectly showcase the value of individuals and society; Internally, it also focuses on the power, sensation, and happiness of human internal bodily senses, and aims to enhance their sensory level and sensitivity. Therefore, both the internal development of individuals and the improvement of their external image rely on concrete physical practice. The embodied body practice forms are rich and diverse. Taking dance as an example, it is a continuous repetition of training for people to achieve the same level of ease as butchering cows. It is not only about self-cultivation and shaping, but also has the effect of health preservation.

Baumgarten once defined aesthetics as the theory of free art, lower epistemology, the art of aesthetic thinking, and the art of thinking similar to reason, which is the science of sensory knowledge [9]. Modern tattoo art showcases the integration of modern people into urban life, accompanied by their inner anxiety and contradictions. Through its unique visual structure and spiritual approach in the context of changing times and contextual symbols, it constantly transcends the original symbolic meanings, promotes the release of human spiritual connotations, visual impact, and desires, and has become one of the popular cultural phenomena with a strong sense of life in today's fast-paced urban living environment, and has become a fashion trend. And tattoos here tend to use the human body as a material carrier of art.

Therefore, the body can only be practiced as the material carrier of human practice. In practice, the body always faces its situation in a planned way. Forming one's own world is a specific way for the body to achieve planning [10, p. 49]. The body is not a corpse, not an inert material, but a subject of creation. It has created its own spirit and possesses the hand of will.

In the era of consumption, people have a relatively good understanding of the objective world of objects, so in aesthetic events, their aesthetic cognition of aesthetic objects is also limited to the scope of existing cognition. When I try to see myself, only its parts appear in my field of vision (such as the hazy contours of my nose tip, pouting lips, outstretched arms, and coiled legs). In fact, the manifestation of tattoo art on "me" can make "me" see myself more clearly, and "self-awareness" here is also a state of aesthetic appreciation of the body. If I observe something outside of myself, what I see first is its profile presented to me, but I can walk around it, observe it from various angles, and capture the dimensions it hides from me. That's why I can capture the entire image of other things. However, I cannot do without myself and cannot stand elsewhere to observe and unfold: 'I' always presents myself from the same perspective; This' I 'is imprisoned in a local area; I exist in a local way for me [10, p. 55]. Just as the form and content of symbolism are not unified in many aspects, that is, the relationship between the part and the whole has not yet reached the realm of "unity of heaven and man".

The body and the object have already formed a world network. Every global network has a real production function, otherwise, humans would not be able to survive as human beings. Body decoration (tattoos) has been practiced since a very early time, and it is likely to be the earliest art form, which can also be used as a prototype for visual art. It uses the body itself as material, leaving traces of various cultures on it [10, p. 227]. As the subjectivity that constitutes the 'center of experience', the body has a sporadic nature and cannot be properly understood as merely an object.

In order to convey practical knowledge of dance, the sensory perception of the imitation process related to the human body is often unconscious and associated with human behavior. Through the process of imitation, people integrate the images and patterns of dance, making them a part of their inner imagination. The process of imitation transfers the world expressed in dance to the inner world of humanity. They help people enrich and expand their inner world culturally through the imagery of dance. The resulting psychological images and their associated co aesthetic experiences vary depending on culture, generation after generation, and environment. Due to the interdependence between practical knowledge, imitation, and performativity, repetition plays an important role in the transmission of dance knowledge. Dance ability only appears when there is repetition of behavior and changes in repetition. Without repetition and imitation of the present or past, cultural competence will not emerge. Therefore, repetition is a core aspect of conveying practical dance knowledge [12]. Taking dance as an example of physical training, because dance behavior is repetitive and imitative. As mentioned earlier, art is an act of imitation, so when the body takes action, the body itself is also an art, even if the body's actions seem to be systematically repeated.

Different models of body consciousness can improve our sensory knowledge, physical activity, and physical pleasure [4]. In the current consumer society, the excessive focus on the body and emotions created by postmodernism and mass media is largely linked to the constantly strengthening consumer economy in reality. Schustermann's theoretical defense of popular culture is actually to improve people's cognitive experience and aesthetic habits through various artistic means, and to bring art and life closer together. Tattoos are a unique social production of human beings, and elevating this special form of artistic expression to the study of body aesthetics has the significance of exploring research objects centered around the human body itself.

Shu's embodied aesthetics not only enriches aesthetic experience and develops aesthetic consciousness, but also plays a good role in the formation of personal style and personality. Establishing one's own body style through physical cultivation is a manifestation of the external practice of embodied aesthetics. Body style includes a person's spiritual characteristics, which correspond to the current focus on physical appearance. Body style is the external manifestation of embodiment, which includes various factors and is reflected through these different factors (appearance, clothing, language, behavior, words, etc.) [11, p. 88]. Therefore, for tattooed individuals, it is not simply about modifying their appearance, but rather their attempt to elevate their self-awareness and consciousness through the external image of the tattoo, which is a reflection of self reshaping, morality, and cultivation.

Tattoos are recognized, accepted, and inherited by contemporary civilized people, and tattoo pigments are constantly being modified and developed. Especially in the 1970s and 1980s, the invention of modern tattoo pigments brought about a revolution in tattoos, which had a huge impact on promoting the popularity of modern tattoos. Modern tattoo pigments can be synthesized through chemical techniques or extracted from plants, making them very complex. Tattoos have become a consumer product, and their significance is more focused on the individual's growth and the historical significance bestowed upon them. Tattoos no longer have a sense of mystery for races and groups.

Therefore, the refinement and diversification of modern tattoo tools are of milestone significance compared to the tattoo tools of the mythological era. It is not only a manifestation of the generalization and diversified needs of human aesthetic consciousness, but also a tangible example of the development of human civilization. The phenomenon of modern tattoos has not disappeared, but with the prosperity of the economy and the development of technology, people's individual aesthetic awareness has been improved. The scope of tattoos is wider, the skills are more advanced, and the forms are more diverse than in the early days [14]. In the aesthetic cultural context constrained by the entire mass communication, without the existence and application of technology, the production activities of art and culture will inevitably weaken the charming brilliance they could have produced. The role of technological power in aesthetic cultural production should be fully evaluated, which is a new mode of aesthetic production and a new cultural configuration power.

The contemporary transformation of aesthetic culture and the development of consumer culture have increasingly demonstrated the role of technology as a unique force. Technology not only changes the form and content of aesthetic culture, but also alters the inherent characteristics and nature of aesthetic culture [7]. In terms of the state of aesthetics, in the consumer society, human aesthetic concepts have shifted from self-discipline to the field of perception, and beauty has begun to shift towards production centered on sensation. Pursuing visual pleasure has become a basic aesthetic need for people [6]. The consumption behavior of contemporary humans is a transcendence of individual material practical activities. As a special context, the cultural industry has led to the market orientation of cultural production in the consumer era, where culture and aesthetics are no longer just unique spiritual production or individual spiritual activities. It has transformed into a mass production cultural industry. Modern commercial tattoos are actually a relatively dispersed cluster model of "small workshops", which also belong to the category of cultural industry production.

For tattoos in the consumer era, which are easily replicated through technological means, they no longer have the aesthetic nobility of the primitive era. The materials of other arts are based on objective objects, while tattoos are based on the physical body of the subject. However, from the perspective of human materiality, the body can still be understood as an objective aesthetic object, as it does not involve the spiritual aspect.

Section 3. Tattoos are the liberation of humanity

The prominent feature of Marx's humanistic theory is the close connection between the analysis of human beings and the development of social history. In the internal unity of practicality, sociality, and historicity, it fully reveals the nature of human beings and thus has a profound impact on history [5]. As a passive existence, the body has plasticity, so painting or tattooing on the skin is a reshaping of the objective material body. Through "acquired habits and practices," it can gain many advantages.

From this perspective, the profound driving force behind the liberation of contemporary people's sensibility and the huge transformation of their sensory system stems from the rise of popular aesthetics in the new era and the advent of the consumption era. It is this cultural revolution and turn that has created and cultivated the generation of contemporary people's aesthetic sensibility. The rise of mass aesthetics in the consumer era is a beneficial practical process of transforming life into aesthetics, and transforming aesthetics into life. It meets the inherent requirements of contemporary people's life impulses and sensory experiences to varying degrees.

In "Academic Culture: Embodied Aesthetics," it is mentioned that the purpose of the shift towards bodily practice is to achieve comprehensive human development. Marx believed that a complete human being not only refers to the organic unity of various forms of human existence, including individual, group, and clan forms, but also to the organic unity of the maximum development of human potential and the comprehensive realization of human essence.

In Marx's eyes, people must first accept a dual requirement: their own material organization and the real structure of the object. It is precisely through the coordination of the sensory activities of these two that people materialize their ideal schema into the structure of the object, and the structure of the object also enters the interior of the person, becoming a part of the subject structure. Therefore, the spiritual structure of the practitioner and the real structure of the world always have isomorphism, which is the ontological basis for the possibility of aesthetics. Since sensory activities are subordinate to the body, aesthetics is not a supplement to rational humility, but a way for the body to self confirm [10, p. 33]. The rise of consumer ideology in the new era is a progress because it has touched upon the value model of traditional ideal personality, surpassed the single form of national survival, promoted and strengthened the consciousness and subjectivity of contemporary people's survival, enhanced the authenticity and freedom of human beings, and transformed the traditional national character of being conservative and focusing only on internal cultivation while neglecting external progress. This is a true value transformation.

Therefore, the emphasis on human nature and the development needs of human personality, as well as the modern popular tattoo culture, are actually the realization of the essential needs of human nature and meet the requirements of the complete process of human development.

Summary

The symbol of alienated labor is the separation and confrontation between the objectified human essential power and the laborer, but it does not negate the disappearance of the objectified human essential power and free creative ability in the object. Grosse said, "The main purpose of primitive ethnic painting is for aesthetics; it is a decoration, not, as some people claim, a primitive form of clothing. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable for us to study painting (and tattoos) from an aesthetic perspective [2]. Interpreting the three eras of tattoos from an aesthetic perspective to legitimize tattoos. But what else is needed for the virtues of human nature? It should be mentioned here that "art" represents human emotions in aesthetics, and it is art that elevates the level of humanity. In all actions guided by interests and will, "humanity" is still largely obscured, and art allows humanity to "manifest". Therefore, the discovery of the "virtues of human nature" is reflected in the "humanity of art," reflecting the self-awareness of morality [1].

References:

1. Dober H.M. Consciousness with Body and Soul: An Attempt at Cohen's Never-Written Psychology. RUDN Journal of Philosophy. 2021;25(3):420—435. DOI: 10.22363/2313-2302-2021-25-3-420-435.
2. Grosse E. The Origin of Art / Translated by Cai Muhui. – Beijing: Commercial Press, 1984. – 47 р.
3. Hegel. Aesthetics / Translated by Zhu Guangqian. – Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2018. – Vol. 11. –  P. 577.
4. Ji Xiaofeng. From Consciousness Experience to Physical Experience. – East China Normal University, 2010.
5. Li Xijian Research on Aesthetic Issues in the Consumer Era. – Beijing: Commercial Press, 2013. – 66 p.
6. Li Xijian. Aesthetic Issues in the Consumer Era – Reflections on the Phenomenon of "Aestheticization of Daily Life" // Journal of Guizhou Normal University (Social Sciences Edition). – 2005. – Vol. 3.
7. Li Xijian. Research on Aesthetic Issues in the Consumer Era. – Beijing: Commercial Press, 2013. – 190 p.
8. RUDN Journal of Philosophy，2021-25-3 URL: https://www.researchgate.net/journal/RUDN-Journal-of-Philosophy-2408-8900/4 (дата обращения: 15.02.2025).
9. Wang Xiaohua. Introduction to Body Aesthetics. – Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2016. – P. 59.
10. Wang Xiaohua. Introduction to Body Aesthetics. – Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2016. – P. 49, 55, 227.
11. Wang Yaqin. Embodiment: A Study of Richard Schumann's Aesthetic Thought. – Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2020. – P. 88.
12. Wulf C. Dance as Experience Field of the Body: A Contribution to Aesthetics // Aisthesis. Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi dell’estetico. – 2019. – Vol. 12(2). – Pp. 19–26. https://doi.org/10.13128/Aisthesis-10712
13. Yang Chunshi History of Modern Aesthetics in China. – Nanchang: Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House, 2019. – P. 529.
14.  Zhou Yuanyi. Interpretation of Contemporary Body Painting Art from the Evolution of Primitive Tattoos // Journal of Hengyang Normal University, 2012.