Graffiti As Vandalism In Pompeii

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Art has been around ever since the ancient city of Pompeii. The people of Pompeii used graffiti as a way to display their cleverness; from poetry contests to playful recombinations of the letters that form Roman Numerals. In the early ‘70s, graffiti was used as a way for young teens to mark their territory. During that time, many people – especially in New York City – saw graffiti as vandalism and prohibited it. Even though graffiti has been misused in some occasions, as long as the purpose is not to deliberately mischievous or malicious destruction, graffiti is art.

In an article called, “Reading the Writing on Pompeii’s Walls” published by Smithsoniammag.com, graffiti is shown to be an art form. The writer says, "In a stairwell, people took turns quoting popular poems and adding their own clever twists.” This is showing how people that lived in Pompeii used the graffiti as a learning tool, and to create and recreate pieces of literature. For the citizens to quote popular poems and adding twists inspired other people to also start taking popular literatures and recreating them. T...

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