Since the days of Pompei at the latest, wall inscriptions and wall drawings have been widespread forms of expression in everyday life. Although they have been found in paintings and art theory since the Renaissance, the term graffiti has only been used since the 19th century. In recent years, these wild signs have increasingly influenced the current art scene. The success of New York sprayers with canvas paintings has contributed to this, as has the public's increased interest in illegal graffiti and images. This paper takes a number of approaches to the topic. After an introduction to the history of the term, it examines some perspectives on the subject in the case of the sprayer of Zurich, Harald Naegeli. The spectrum ranges from the judicial condemnation of the "vandal" to the protection of the artist Naegeli as a monument. His controversial position serves as a starting point for the question of the public effect of graffiti, whereby its relationship to architecture, but also the reciprocal effect of the sprayers' self-portrayals and the representation in scientific publications are dealt with. Another approach is the visualization of the art-historical development of graffiti since the Renaissance in words and pictures. In the course of the 20th century, wall signs developed into an independent artistic form of expression—artists such as George Grosz, Brassaï, and Jean Dubuffet are examples here—a development that predates the current position of graffiti. On the basis of selected contemporary examples, a third approach explains individual aspects and problems of graffiti. Case studies on a wall drawing in Cologne, the Berlin Wall, the graffiti of squatters, the fate of a Naegeli graffito, or the step into legality that New York sprayers have taken with images sprayed on canvas reveal a multi-layered interplay between art and art education on the one hand and everyday culture on the other.