A graffiti (a word of Greek origin, but the term comes from America, whose real meaning is: inscriptions ) the most typical habitat is on walls of public places.

The graffiti already existed in the ancient times. Historically the concept of graffiti is wall notes scribbled on tombs, ruined buildings, figures, you can see in the Roman catacombs or in Pompei. As a fashion it spreaded in the western world in 1960’s.

The first collector of graffiti was Brassai,who made a photoalbum of children’s graffitis in Paris. Collecting

There are famous graffity artists. The most famous is Keith Haring, but most of them– like in Hungary– are anonymous, or rather illegal.

Cultivating the graffiti on a professional level of art, however is quite rare. In some people’s opinion graffiti is an artistic style deserving exhibition, but many people only know the so-called "tag”-s, that we can see everywhere (on walls of apartment houses, in bus stops, on the side of trains).

For the graffiti artists special industry was established. Several firms produce only the writer’s equipments.

In most countries graffiti on the walls without the owner permission is vandalism, illegal,and is punished by the court. Nowadays it is also used for the transmission of social and political messages.

A 23 years old man from Mikepércs in Hungary was sentenced to 2-year prison because of graffiti. He was already sentenced before because of the same offence. He wrote his passion in graffiti and he didn’t deserve punishment. He commited suicide. He might have thought the sentence was too strict for this.

One of his graffitis

Most people judge the graffiti as vandalism, because it contains little worth of art.(it could be considered the sketch-book of the future artist),on the other hand it means the rough offence of private property. What do you think?

Daniella Szabó