Two years ago I finished my school. It was a nice time and I like remembering it. I can’t say that I studied a lot, but I remember such moments in my life :) The biggest part of my school life we painted graffiti with my friends. For the first time we did it on the paper, then we began to paint our city’s walls. We couldn’t imagine that it could be a vandalism somehow, we just wanted to make our Ryazan beautiful and colorful. Have you ever thought about why people do graffiti? What is a moral of all these drawings? Is it a kind of protest? Let’s look in the history of graffiti paintings in order to find answers to all of these questions. 

The word "graffiti” derives from the Greek word "graphein” meaning: to write. Graffiti was incorporated into the Hip-Hop culture and became a sort of triad with rapping and break dancing. The person’s name who opened graffiti world is Keith Haring. He was the first in graffiti industry and he did it for showing his protest to government, because thousands of people disagreed with economy and politics. In the mid-eighties the world knew about graffiti and it quickly became a social scene. 

According to Haring’s thoughts, graffiti is a way to change any political or economic situations in the country. But he didn’t think that graffiti would be very popular among young people and it became a kind of Hip-Hop art. 

At the end of my article I just want to ask you: What is graffiti for you? As for me, graffiti is a way to show my emotions. When I’m happy I use bright colors, draw flowers, sun and so on, but when I’m angry, my paintings are in black and grey colors. Graffiti is art, because you need to think about style, about shade, about "fat” and "skinned” lines in your painting. And, of course, for doing it you need to have good fantasy and imagination. That is why it can be called ART.