Body & Paint

Body painting is a form of Trompe-l'œil body art, considered by some as the most ancient form of art. more...

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Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and lasts for only several hours, or at most (in the case of Mehndi or "henna tattoo") a couple of weeks. Painting of the face is known as face painting. It is often written as one word bodypainting.

Traditional body painting

Body painting with clay and other natural pigments existed in most, if not all, tribalist cultures, often worn during ceremonies; it still survives in this ancient form among the indigenous people of Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific islands and parts of Africa. A semi-permanent form of body painting known as Mehndi, using dyes made of henna (hence also known rather erroneously as "henna tattoo"), was and is still practised in India and the Middle East, especially on brides. Since the late 1990s, Mehndi has become popular amongst young women in the Western world.

Indigenous peoples of South America traditionally use annatto, huito, or wet charcoal to decorate their face and body. Huito is semi-permanent and it generally takes weeks for this black dye to fade.

Actors and clowns around the world have painted their faces and sometimes bodies for centuries, and continue to do so today. More subdued form of face paints for everyday occasions evolve into the cosmetics we know today.

Modern body painting

There has been a revival of body painting in the Western society since the 1960s, in part prompted by the liberalization of social mores regarding nudity. Even today there is a constant debate about the legitimacy of body painting as an art form. The current modern revival could be said to date back to the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago where Max Factor and his model were arrested for causing a public disturbance when he bodypainted her with his new make-up formulated for Hollywood films.

Body art today evolves to the works more directed towards personal mythologies, as Jana Sterbak, Rebecca Horn, Youri Messen-Jaschin or Javier Perez.

Body painting is not always full nude bodies. Body painting includes smaller designs on one area on the body.

A slightly alternative art movement was started in the 1950s or 1960s. It involves covering a model in paint and then having the model touch or roll on a canvas or other medium to transfer the paint there. Perhaps French artist Yves Klein being the most famous for this with his series of paintings 'Anthropometries'. The effect produced by this technique creates an image-transfer from the model's body to the medium. This includes all the curves of the model's body (typically female) being reflected in the outline of the image. This technique was not necessarily monotone; multiple colors on different body parts sometimes produced interesting effects.

Read more at Wikipedia.org