Angkor Wat Tattoo
An Angkor Wat tattoo can often be an invitation into other worlds. They are definitely edgy, being some of the most spectacularly large tattoos around, and they also have a very distinct spiritual connection. In recent times, some of the more abstract spiritual symbols have given way to a more direct form of representation. This is a very interesting shift in tattoo culture generally, and speaks of a need for tangibility. But there are many different types of Angkor Wat tattoos that one can have, and in this we can start to trace a spectrum of experience that is not only indicative of a return to roots, but it’s also a turn away from the more obvious means of expressing a belief.
Tattoos have been around for centuries, and it seems as though the impulse to draw on caves was also simultaneous with the impulse to write on our own bodies. In earlier times, there were more symbolic and abstract forms, because these were in more common usage. People could distinguish themselves and give attention to their place in the society, or the religious order of things. It was less common to see representations of objects made permanent in the skin, but that may be a result of variations in how we perceive the world. Today, we are influenced by a kind of art that was not really in existence until fairly recently.
Even Shakespeare, who spoke of the holding the mirror up to nature, although he sounds like a realist, could not be said to have anticipated painting speech in concordance with how people actually spoke. There were always many different ways of elevating the language to another level, and another kind of reality. We see the same practices in tattoos of sacred places. Some try to depict according to a photographic realism, while others are more interested in creating a particular effect when we see the image. This is where the Angkor Wat tattoo really becomes an interesting icon, because it is usually an exact pictorial representation of the famous sacred site. Different perceptions still influence how we want to define ourselves, and we increasingly define ourselves according to how we perceive.
