Graffiti arguably has its historical beginnings way back thousands of years ago when writing or ’scratching’ on the wall (the italian word, grafitto means ‘a scratch’) was a main means of communication.
This is evidenced for example by the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt which were etched or ’scratched’ onto the walls of temples.
But more recent history traces graffiti writng and art back to the 60’s.
This modern history of graffiti began in the 60s in the West Coast of America, primarily Philadelphia.
Some call this era the ground work era and it was artists such as Top Cat who began the evolution.
Soon the movement spread to New York with writers inspired by their brothers across the country, resulting in ‘attacks’ of graffiti on trains as a method of political protest instead of directly violent acts.
The style during this formative period in the history of graffiti is hard to discern with bubble lettering and wildstyle both being utilized heavily by different artists. However, as the movement moved forward into the 70s – the so called pioneering era, the wildstyle of Tracy 168 began to symbolize the arts movement.
At the same time in the history of graffiti, we can see a major rise in the sheer number of tags being created by artists, with mass bombing and tagging becoming more active.
The size of the 
works began to increase with artists preferring to move into safer areas such as train depots so that they could create more intricate works. This included groups such as TF5 painting entire cars with the ever more popular spray paint.
This was to be the high water mark though in the history of graffiti as an underground art movement for the late 70s saw little innovation in the movement, probably strongly effected by the increased countermeasures employed by the city of New York. What resulted was a change in direction, away from a purely artistic and political focus into a musical collaboration with hip-hop which is still seen today.
That isn’t to say that was the end of graffiti, what followed in the history of graffiti was a period of acceptance by the art world at large for their style, most recently with the prominence of artists such as Banksy .
However, graffiti has never strayed too far from it’s roots, with the Berlin Wall showing it’s continued power in the 1980s as a symbol of revolution.The same is true in Palestine today, and hence the basic goals which were present at the start of the history of graffiti still exist today.
Author: Nathaly Dedeyan
Not much actual graffiti action in this documentary but lots of history as Cornbread talks about how and why he started tagging all city in Philidelphia in the 60’s which lead to the start of graffiti writing as we now know it.
Graffiti has spread to the far corners of the earth and in the process has become the biggest art movement in history and every graffiti writer began his or her writing career with a tag. Developing an original, consistently written name is the primary act for a writer. The photos in Tag Town, dating back to the 60’s, introduce us to the origins of New York style graffiti.
The mainstream stereotype of the average graffiti artist is that they are gang members and street hoodlums, But a great number of them were legitimate citizens who led double lives, in which they were straight A students by day, … And then I rode them five, six hours, five days a week, just writing in them, doing insides, you know. I knew the trains, I knew each line. I spent more time on the trains than in school, and I was a straight A student
After ‘Akira’ came out I often saw amazing graffiti on the street in Tokyo so, I became more interested in graffiti art since then. I used to live in Melbourne, which is a graffiti heaven, and I have seen many colourful and powerful graffiti works there but I got more inspiration from Banksy.
Public Wall Writing in Philadelphia
Yet another great graffiti book has hit the shelves. Public Wall Writing in Philadelphia captures graffiti in Philly through the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.
Nathaly Dedeyan is co-owner of http://www.graffiti-letters.com a free online resource for free graffiti art, fonts and graphics. Graffiti-letters.com offers a free online graffiti generator which can be used for fun or even serious designs. http://www.graffiti-letters.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nathaly_Dedeyan
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