Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints go back to the middle of the 17th century.

Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 opened trade to the West, and by 1862, a Paris shop called La Jonque Chinoise on the Rue de Rivoli sold Oriental art to collectors, including Degas and Monet.

Japanese art invigorated Western art through the Impressionists, including Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cassatt. All turned away from realism and naturalism, embraced expressionism and gave birth to modern art.

Japanese prints continue to inspire artists, from painter, printmaker and tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy to modern commercial tattoo artists.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts' current show attempts not altogether successfully to explore the theme of the tattoo in Japanese woodblock prints.

Japanese tattoo art has several names: irezumi, horimono or irebokuro in the Japanese language. Irezumi is the word for the traditional visible tattoo that covers large parts of the body, such as the back.

The Japanese tattoo art of irezumi is rich with tradition. Irezumi tattoos cover a large portion of the body's surface, and the stylistic designs have many traditional Japanese motifs.

Tattooing in Japan goes back to the Jomon (meaning "pattern of rope") period (10,000-300 B.C.), distinguished by ceramic pots with rope markings and figurines with tattoo-like markings on their faces and bodies.

Haniwa figures from the Kofun ("old tomb") period (ca. 250-538) also display markings thought to be tattoos.

Tattooing is found among samurai warriors in the 16th century, often for identification.

There are examples of therapeutic tattooing among the Ainu and the Ryukyu Islanders, who believed that tattoos could magically heal. It is generally agreed, however, that the Ainu facial tattoo tradition is unrelated to the development of irezumi.

The development of ukiyo-e in the Edo period (1603-1867) changed the style of Japanese tattoo. Limited materials in Japan led to the development of sumie or suibokuga (monochrome ink paintings) and influenced the revival of tattooing. Later, colors were imported from foreign countries.

Another Japanese term for tattoo is irebokuro (from ire or ireru, which means to insert, and bokuro or hokuro, a beauty spot). Irebokuro originated among the yujos, or legal prostitutes, in a strict climate of Confucian ethics.

Tattooing became the popular art among the lower class. Ancestors of the modern yakuza used tattooing as a mark of status.

Print artists explored the world of tattoos by depicting kabuki actors in the roles of famous warriors, such as "The 108 Heroes of the Suikoden."

This Japanese rendition of the Chinese classic, "The Shuihu Zhuan," or "Tales of the Water Margin," chronicles the deeds of Robin Hood-like bandits as they defend and do battle on behalf of the common man. The popularity of this story spilled into the world of the printmaker, and artists such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) created editions of the story.

Kuniyoshi's work is still used as the basis of tattoo designs today, and his warrior prints inspired the development of the full body tattoo.

Many common people had dragon tattoos, an image popular among firemen believed to summon forth water.

Tattooing became a form of punishment in 1720, replacing amputation of nose and ears for crimes such as extortion, swindling and fraud.

Criminals were tattooed until 1870 with a black ring around an arm for each offense, or with a Japanese character on the forehead, a lifetime mark of shame and social ostracism.

Pictorial tattoos first appeared after the Horeki era (1751-1764), with relatively small designs of family crests or evil images such as a severed human head. Though people began to have a couple tattoos on their bodies, each piece was scattered at random, not unified.

Heroes and warriors became prime subject matter; especially after the Tenpo era (1830-1844) reforms restricted the depiction Kabuki prints (yakusha-e), with their bold design and use of dramatic stylized gestures like the mie.

Artists like Kuniyoshi and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) worked around the restrictions by using misleading titles that did not disclose that the image was actually a famous actor in a prominent role.

Literary subjects and characters were also extremely popular, especially the vivid stories from the "Heike Monogatari" ("The Tale of the Heike"), a collection of episodic stories related to the rise and downfall of the Taira clan in 12th century Kyoto. Kuniyoshi found the Heike a rich resource for his particular talent for depicting active, energetic and highly dramatic scenes.

Japanese full-body tattoos developed because of the existence of sumie and the establishment of clothing fashion inspired by samurai warriors' costumes.

The first style of tattoo was done only on the back, then extended to the shoulders, arms, and thighs, and finally on the whole body.

The majority of tattooed people were artisans or laborers, particularly scaffolding builders, rickshaw men and gamblers.

The Meiji Restoration (1868) marked the beginning of modernization in Japan and the abolition of the feudal system. Because the government regarded it as barbaric, all tattooing was prohibited in 1872, including the Ainu and the Ryukyu tribal tattooing. The prohibition applied only to the Japanese, not to foreigners, many of whom were impressed by Japanese tattoo designs. Sailors from the highest to the lowest ranks often were tattooed when they arrived in Japanese ports.

Although the prohibition was finally lifted in 1948, the practice of tattooing retains a negative and dark image in Japan today, due mainly to its historical roots.

In this rather free-associative exhibition, famous kabuki actors mix with anonymous firemen and carpenters, each image arguably inspired by the artistic hand of the tattoo artist, each informed with an aesthetic based upon precise line, crisp design and rich, bold color.

The individual pieces are fascinating, especially if you've never seen these prints in the flesh, as it were.

Designed as cheap throwaways — especially the actor prints, which were priced at a bowl of noodles and were designed to memorialize the superstars of their day — these works are brilliant examples of how sometimes popular art achieves world-class fine-art quality.

A tantalizing question remains unanswered: Was the purpose of the Japanese tattoo to hide the naked body because nudity was embarrassing? The answer is, apparently not, because semi-nakedness was a natural part of the landscape in Japan at that time.

The exhibition itself, however, is disjointed and lacks a coherent and unified structure, visually or thematically, that results in a viewing experience. It's a little like a series of Monty Python sketches based on the repetition of a particular word, strung together with the announcement, "And now for something completely different."

Still, on the strength of the individual pieces, the exhibition is more than worthwhile to see, not only for its educational value, but also for its treasure house of visual delights.

David C. Farmer holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing and a masters of arts in Asian and Pacific art history from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.