Graffiti as an Art Form

The first chapter of this essay will focus primarily on the history of graffiti from what is generally understood as its origin with the first writers who used spray paint as their tools of creation up until modern times. This chapter will look at how the history has formed the general perception of this art form and how it has changed over the years. The second chapter will discuss three archetypes of graffiti seen today. These archetypes are: city funded art murals, city or privately funded freewalls, and artistic mitigations of vandalism. Each of these archetypes will be explored via multiple real world examples and we will consider how each of these examples do or do not succeed in displaying graffiti as a well regarded public art form. The third chapter will propose another archetype for creating graffiti that has not been widely realized or put into practice. The third chapter will then speculate using the knowledge from the previous existing archetypes to discuss whether or not it could be utilized in the real world effectively and a conclusion will be drawn about the methods of graffiti that are practical and effective means to create well regarded art.