body art

I've been thinking a lot about tattoos recently, as the end of a "chapter" of my life approaches, and it got me thinking about the kinds of things that people choose to print onto their body.
The first question that people always ask is, "what does it mean," and immediately try to interpret how the personal meaning relates to the image. I have come to the conclusion that a personal meaning could not be translated into a single image, and if you found one that does, there would be no need to print it on your body so that everyone can see it. If you are aware of the meaning that the tattoo has, it does not have to be related to the image.
So, the image needs only to have aesthetic value because it is after all, a body adornment, something that you do for other people. It is a way to make your bosy more unique as well as more visually pleasing. It is interesting that "abstract" tattoos are not more popular, as they became mainstream after the modern art movement, so I would think that people would have moved away from such straightforward visual representations. Actually, rather than being realistic they tend to be a shorthand for what they represent; merely a symbol. Symbols are laden with symbolism (obviously) but the meanings are varied from person to person. Except for the clearly socially contructed meaning of the symbol, personal experience is always altering the meaning.
A symbol is not even an effective way to get your message across, so why even both trying to get a message acros when art is so subjective nowadays? Get art for art's sake. The pattern and decoration movement should be the inspiration for tattoos because now that it is no longer radical, the reason for getting body art is purely aesthetic.