Japanese Tattoo Designs

Japanese culture and history is filled with beautiful imagery and enchanting cultural stories and mythology. And the best of Japanese tattoo designs capture the raw beauty and power inherent in much of Japanese art.

The rich Japanese history of Samurai warriors, shoguns, extreme and vivid cultural differences to the West, unmatched emphasis on strength and honour. All these things provide great concets, ideas and stories to express in Japanese tattoo designs.

The famous japanese watercolors, woodcuts and landscape art forms admired so for their simple style, beauty and trqanquility. Japanese art captures rich imagery with great simplicity - the simplistic but beautiful style of Japanese art lends itself well to tattoos as it is more easily replicated in tattoo art than perhaps the traditional Western art of the Renaissance.

Japanese tattoo designs are amongst the very best of genuinely beautiful artistic tattoo art. And at the same time these designs of tattoo are very popular because they are filled with a richness of meaning that is tied in with Japanese culture.

In Japan a traditional form of tattoo design emerged which replicates the style of tradiaional Japanese woodcuts and landscapes, called Horimono. This traditional Japanese tattoo art is over 5,000 years old, and in ancient times these tattoos were believed to hold magical and religious significance.

Today you can find many Japanese tattoo designs that carry a strong element of this Horimono style of tattooing, that has been refined and improved for 5,000 years. If you search carefully and choose wiesly you will find the most beautiful and powerful tattoos possible among Japanese tattoo designs.

Inspired by Nature

Japanese tattoo designs, like traditional Japanese art, hold a deep respect for nature and life. And most images in Japanese tattoo designs are inspired by nature. Popular animals are dragons, tigers and fish in streams. Bonsai trees, octopus and cherry blossums are other common themes. Geisha, young girls, women and samurai are the most popular among human images in Japanese tattoo designs. Also gods and goddesses from Japanese mythology.

Cherry Blossum trees are an example of nature reflected in Japanese tattoo designs that is unmatched by other forms of tattoo design. Rolling hills, streams and soaring mountains with waterfalls are also often pictured to powerful effect.

Japanese tattoo designs are excellent forms of tattoos and can suit and part of the body. They are well-suited to small and discreet designs or large, powerful, bold designs that cover large expanses of the body.