HYSTORY OF BATIK

BATIK IN JAVA There is nowhere in the world where the art of batik has been developed to the highest standards as in the island of Java in Indonesia. All the raw materials for the process are readily available - cotton and beeswax and many plants from which the dyes are made. It is not known when the batik was first made but the traditional skills were particularly well developed over hundreds of years in Central Java around Yogyakarta and Soto under the patronage of the Sultan and his court. Designs were copies and in some cases the cloths could only be used by certain people or on certain occasions. The royal families had their own proscribed designs. On the coast designs were developed differently, influenced by settlers from China, the Dutch colonists and traders from India and Arabia. Two methods of applying wax are used. 1 The cloth is hung over the frame and the design is drawn on with a canting, a small copper cupped spout which is attached to a bamboo or wooden handle. The canting is dipped into a pot of hot wax and then allowed to flow through the spout on to the fabric. On thicker fabrics the waxing is carried out on both sides. This process is carried out by the women. 2 The cloth is stretched on to long tables and a cap or copper stamping tool is used. This is dipped into a pan of hot wax and pressed on to the fabric. This enables the design to be repeated many times and is usually done on both sides of the fabric by men. This is a much faster method of wax application. The traditional dyes used are deep indigo blues and soga browns and these are still the characteristic colours for work in central Java. Towards the end of the 19th century chemical dyes were introduced in the coastal regions and as a result of this the colours are usually brilliant and more varied. The final hand made lengths of cloth, known as Tulis, may take several months to produce and are consequently very expensive. Everywhere in Indonesia people still wear clothing made from batik cloth and the tourist industry has opened up a new market for cheap batik clothing and pictures. Reproduced from The Art of Batik, written and published by The Batik Guild, 1999

			BATIK IN AFRICA
			There are examples of batik textiles in many parts of Africa but the most developed skills are to be found in Nigeria where the Yoruba people make adire cloths. Two methods of resist are used: adire eleso which involves tied and stitched designs and adire eleko where starch paste is used. The paste is most often made from cassava (a root plant) flour, rice, alum or copper sulphate boiled together to produce a smooth thick paste. The Yoruba of West Africa used cassava paste as a resist while the people of Senegal use rice paste. The paste is applied in two different ways. By using freehand drawing of traditional designs using a feather, thin stick, piece of fine bone or a metal or wooden comb-like tool. This is done by women. Forced through a thin metal stencil with a flexible metal or wooden tool. This enables accurate repeat patterns to be achieved. This is done by men. The patterning of cloth is usually a family tradition handed down from mother to daughter as a cottage industry. The cloth is usually divided into squares or rectangles and designs represent everyday tools, carvings, beadwork, activities or traditional images of the artists own culture or tribal history. An eleko cloth is usually made up of two, two and a half yard pieces sewn together. Many women work alone but group dyeing sessions are more cost effective. The more commercial cloths are the stencil products and are often produced by men. The traditional dye is indigo from a plant which grows throughout Africa. In many places these are now cultivated and different varieties produce a variation of the dark blue colour. Once the paste resist is dry, the fabric is dyed in large clay pots or pits dug in the earth. After drying the paste is scraped off to reveal a white or pale blue design. The usual cloth is cotton but highly prized clothing using wild silk is sometimes produced. In recent years other cloths using African designs have been produced in Britain (Manchester cloths) and Holland. These mass produced fabrics are machine made. Some are now produced in various African countries. Mud Cloth This fabric is made by the Bamana people of Mali. The ground fabric is woven of hand spun cotton yarn in narrow strips on the mans double-heddle loom. The cloth is then dyed yellow and the design applied with river mud. This 'saddens' the yellow, turning it dark brown. The yellow dye in the unpainted areas is then discharged with a caustic preparation bleaching out these areas and returning them to their original colour. This produces cloth with the characteristic dark brown and white pattern. Reproduced from The Art of Batik, written and published by The Batik Guild, 1999

			BATIK IN CHINA
			China has a long history of batik production dating back to the sixth century. Today you can still find batik being done by the ethnic people in Guizhou Province, in the South-West of China. Here the Miao, Bouyei and Gejia people use a dye resist method that is different from the Han Chinese. There are also many different sub groups within the Miao minority. The Miao place great emphasis on their costumes which are made up of decorative fabrics which they achieve by pattern weaving and wax resist. Almost all the Miao decorate hemp and cotton (not silk) by applying hot wax then dipping the cloth in an indigo dye. The cloth is then used for skirts, panels on jackets, aprons and baby carriers. Indigo is used chiefly for the basic cloth throughout Guizo to give dark blues. A paste is made from the harvested plants which have been soaked in a wooden barrel. Wax resisted fabric was probably one of the earliest forms of decoration in Guizhou as all the materials were at hand. Beeswax is the main ingredient but other resins or wax are possibly added. The wax resist never exploits crackle, the aim is to produce a clear image and beeswax is both tenacious and flexible. The wax is often heated in a little pot, resting in hot embers. Once applied the wax appears black on the fabric but at the end of the process the wax is removed from the fabric. The fabric is then rinsed in cool water and air dried. The beeswax can be reused. The usual tools for applying wax are of copper and brass with bamboo handles. They are made from 2 small triangular pieces of metal, their apexes bound to a bamboo holder by copper wire. It is held like a pen either upright or at a slant to the cloth which is laid flat on a board. This tool lends itself to the drawing of straight or slightly curving lines. The Miao, Gejia and Bouyei girls are highly skilled at batik. They use very finely drawn circular and double spiral designs representing the horns of the water buffalo, symbolising their ancestor's life and death. Girls start learning to produce batik from the age of 6 and 7 years. The finest work is found on baby carriers, sleeves of their jackets and skirts. The more traditional designs are geometric, where the most skilled wax resist reads as a fine blue line on a white ground. With the influence of the Han Chinese more figurative designs like flowers, birds, fish have been introduced over the centuries. Reproduced from The Art of Batik, written and published by The Batik Guild, 1999