A Brief History of Modern Graffiti

Google defines graffiti as a writing or drawing "scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place." Graffiti has been in existence almost as long as the human race itself, found alongside the earliest scientific discoveries of human life in the form of drawings on cave walls. Modern graffiti can also be traced back fairly far in human history. The earliest found instances of modern-style graffiti were found in ancient Greek and Roman cities. Residents would write things such as their names, political jokes, and even advertisements for prostitution on building walls and structures near walkways ("Graffiti", 2012). There is much disagreement on where graffiti as we know it today got its start, but a majority of people agree that New York and Philadelphia were very important places in regards to its growth and popularity.

 In urban areas, graffiti was used primarily as political statement for activists or as a way to mark territory for gangs (Felisbret, 2009). It wasn't until the late 60's that graffiti artists, termed "writers", appeared with the purpose of achieving artistic recognition through graffiti. Two of the first credited writers were Philadelphia artists Cool Earl and a high school student called Cornbread, who is rumored to have started writing to impress a girl (Melker, 2011). They made names for themselves by writing their names in as many places throughout the city as they could, an act that came to be known as tagging. Graffiti soon caught the attention of the public media.
The first major recognition of graffiti outside of its own subculture came from a 1971 New York Times article about Greek writer Taki 183, a teenager from Manhattan (Felisbret, 2009). In the article, Taki 183 was interviewed about his inspiration for writing on subway cars and ice-cream trucks and talked about how he came up with his pseudonym (Taki was his childhood nickname and 183 was the street he lived on).

Taki 183's tag

As Graffiti grew in popularity and more writers emerged, they sought new ways to distinguish themselves from others. The goal of graffiti artists from the mid 70's onward shifted from the quantity of tags around their respective cities to the quality of the pieces they were creating. This is the period in which most of the styles and techniques still used today were developed.

 Names began taking on dimensions: block and bubble letters filled with stripes, polka dots, and other patters; words were accompanied by scenery and characters and sometimes were done away with altogether in favor of bombing, or painting any graffiti illustrations besides the artist's name. The competitive nature of writing drove writers to make their works bigger and more elaborate to the point where bombing entire walls and whole subway cars was considered a standard to some (Felisbret, 2009).

Graffiti is less prevalent today due to the collective efforts of citizens and government officials concerned with city beautification, but there still exists an underground subculture of graffiti.