Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) was a famous artist in the mid-20th century who rarely used color in his artwork. Most of his pieces are pencil drawings that are ideal for black-and-gray, traditional tattoos. He was also known for drawing paradoxes, such as two hands drawing each other and ascending and descending staircases that could not exist in reality. Any piece of Escher work can make for a beautiful tattoo, but you may want to consider some of his more popular work so it is more recognizable to the public.
Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) are both highly regarded impressionists who incorporated bright and vibrant colors into many of their paintings. Any colorful work from either artist can make a brilliant and extravagant color mural tattoo, such as Monet's "Water Lillies" or van Gogh's "Starry Night." The colors in the tattoo should match the surrealistic appeal of the artwork and you should take extra care of the tattoo as it heals to ensure the colors remain beautiful.
Sheet music tattoos are less about the design and more about the piece of music they represent. But that doesn't mean you should entrust anyone but an experienced professional to tattoo the agonizingly straight lines and the perfectly scaled musical notes. Choose a particular song or portion of a song from any artist, such as classics like Mozart's "Requiem," Beethoven's "Fur Elise" or any modern-day piece of music you may enjoy.
A literary quote tattoo is a word or group of words taken from the pages of a classic novel or poem and tattooed in any type of font or style of your choosing. The script tattoo can be one word or several sentences depending on your preferences, but the longer and more detailed the font, the larger the tattoo will need to be. Choose your favorite literary quote and in addition to the words themselves, consider tattooing a hyphen underneath alongside the signature of the person who wrote them.