What is batik

A simple batik may be just one layer of wax and one dye, but this process of waxing and dyeing can be repeated many times if necessary to create more elaborate and colourful designs. After the final dyeing the wax is removed usually in hot water and the cloth is ready for wearing or displaying. Contemporary batik, while owing much to the past, is markedly different from the more traditional and formal styles of the past.

The artist may use a wide variety of techniques to apply the wax and the dyes: spraying, etching, discharging, cracking, marbling, and use all sorts of different tools: copper and wooden stamps, brushes, stencils.

She may also use wax recipes with different resist values: soya wax, beeswax, paraffin wax and work with natural and synthetic dyes on all kinds of surfaces. Paraffin wax, yellow as well as white, is brittle and cracks easily so that the dye penetrates to the textile and creates a marbled look. Resin binds the ingredients together and makes the wax cling better to the textile. Animal or vegetable fat adds flexibility to the wax mixture. Often wax mixtures are used again. The price of each ingredient can also affect the mixture.

The mixture used for block prints tends to be cheaper than that used for hand-painted silks. Dyes from local plants and insects were used in traditional textile decoration. One example is the use of leaves from the indigo plants to obtain deep blue colour shades.

Today the use of chemically produced dyes is common. In Malaysia reactive dyes are preferred because they are convenient, have clear and brilliant colours, and fasten easily to textiles containing fibres of cellulose as well as silk.

The chemical formula of the dye will determine the method for fixing the colours. The colour can for instance be fixed by using sodium silicate, or by exposing the material to air.

The range of colours varies from traditional combinations dominated by blue and brown, to brilliant red, turquoise, blue, pink, orange and green. In hand-painting different shades are obtained by diluting the colour with water during the painting process. Fabrics of different qualities and structures are used in the production of batik. These can be cotton, viscose, rayon and silk.

Silk is mostly used for hand-painting. Industrially produced textiles have to be boiled or washed in order to remove finish and other residues before waxing and colouring can take place.

To make the colour fasten well the fabric is treated with starch made from rice or cassava. For fine work some oil is also added to obtain a smoother surface that makes it easier to control the waxing. Finally the fabric is ironed to remove creases. In earlier times the fabrics were smoothened by being beaten with a wooden club.

Hand-painting of batik in Malaysia builds on traditions from the Javanese hand-painted batek tulis. In Java the pattern was traced on both sides before the fabric was soaked in the dye.

The prepared and measured-out fabric is stretched over a metal or wooden frame. This process is repeated as many times as the number of colours desired. The most traditional type of batik, called batik tulis, is drawn using only the canting. The cloth needs to be drawn on both sides, and dipped in a dye bath three to four times. The whole process may take up to a year; it yields considerably finer patterns than stamped batik.

The popularity of batik in Indonesia has varied. Historically, it was essential for ceremonial costumes and it was worn as part of a kebaya dress, commonly worn every day.

The use of batik was already recorded in the 12th century, and the textile has become a strong source of identity for Indonesians crossing religious, racial and cultural boundaries. It is also believe the motif made the batik famous. In Indonesian, many batik patterns are symbolic. Infants are carried in batik slings decorated with symbols designed to bring the child luck, and certain batik designs are reserved for brides and bridegrooms, as well as their families. Some designs are reserved for royalties, and even banned to be worn by commoners.

Consequently, a person's rank could be determined by the pattern of the batik he or she wore. Further study to the geometry of symbolism in Indonesian batik showed the applicability of fractal geometry in traditional designs.

Batik garments play a central role in certain Javanese rituals, such as the ceremonial casting of royal batik into a volcano. In the Javanese naloni mitoni ceremony, the mother-to-be is wrapped in seven layers of batik, wishing her good things. Batik is also prominent in the tedak siten ceremony when a child touches the earth for the first time. The day, October 2, has been stated by Indonesian government as National Batik Day, as also at the time the map of Indonesian batik diversity by Hokky Situngkir was opened for public for the first time by the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Technology.

The batik industry of Java flourished from the late s to early s, but declined during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia. With increasing preference of western clothing, the batik industry further declined following the Indonesian independence.

Batik has somewhat revived at the turn of the 21st century, through the efforts of Indonesian fashion designers to innovate batik by incorporating new colours, fabrics, and patterns. Batik has become a fashion item for many Indonesians, and may be seen on shirts, dresses, or scarves for casual wear; it is a preferred replacement for jacket-and-tie at certain receptions. Traditional batik sarongs are still used in many occasions.

After the UNESCO recognition for Indonesian batik on 2 October , the Indonesian administration asked Indonesians to wear batik on Fridays, and wearing batik every Friday has been encouraged in government offices and private companies ever since.

Batik had helped improve the small business local economy, batik sales in Indonesia had reached Rp 3. Batik is also popular in the neighbouring countries of Singapore and Malaysia. It is produced in Malaysia with similar, but not identical, methods to those used in Indonesia. However, Dr Fiona Kerlogue of the Horniman museum argued that the Malaysian printed wax textiles, made for about a century, were quite a different tradition from the "very fine" traditional Indonesian batiks produced for many centuries.

Batik is featured in the national airline uniforms of the three countries, represented by batik prints worn by flight attendants of Singapore Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Malaysian Airlines. The female uniform of Garuda Indonesia flight attendants is a modern interpretation of the Kartini style kebaya with parang gondosuli motifs. Wax resist dyeing of fabric is an ancient art form.

It already existed in Egypt in the 4th century BC, where it was used to wrap mummies; linen was soaked in wax, and scratched using a stylus. The art of batik is most highly developed in the island of Java in Indonesia. In Java, all the materials for the process are readily available — cotton and beeswax and plants from which different vegetable dyes are made. Indonesian batik predates written records: G. Rouffaer argues that the technique might have been introduced during the 6th or 7th century from India or Sri Lanka.

Brandes and the Indonesian archaeologist F. Sutjipto believe Indonesian batik is a native tradition, since another regions in Indonesia such as Toraja, Flores, Halmahera, and Papua, which were not directly influenced by Hinduism, have an age-old tradition of batik making.

Rouffaer reported that the gringsing pattern was already known by the 12th century in Kediri, East Java. He concluded that this delicate pattern could be created only by using the canting, an etching tool that holds a small reservoir of hot wax, and proposed that the canting was invented in Java around that time. The carving details of clothes worn by East Javanese Prajnaparamita statues from around the 13th century show intricate floral patterns within rounded margins, similar to today's traditional Javanese jlamprang or ceplok batik motif.

The motif is thought to represent the lotus, a sacred flower in Hindu-Buddhist beliefs. This evidence suggests that intricate batik fabric patterns applied with the canting existed in 13th-century Java or even earlier.

In Europe, the technique was described for the first time in the History of Java, published in London in by Stamford Raffles, who had been a British governor for Bengkulu, Sumatra. In the Dutch merchant Van Rijckevorsel gave the pieces he collected during a trip to Indonesia to the ethnographic museum in Rotterdam. Today the Tropenmuseum houses the biggest collection of Indonesian batik in the Netherlands.

The Dutch and Chinese colonists were active in developing batik, particularly coastal batik, in the late colonial era. They introduced new patterns as well as the use of the cap copper block stamps to mass-produce batiks. Displayed at the Exposition Universelle at Paris in , the Indonesian batik impressed the public and artists.

In the s, Javanese batik makers migrating to Malaya now Malaysia introduced the use of wax and copper blocks to its east coast. In Subsaharan Africa, Javanese batik was introduced in the 19th century by Dutch and English traders. The local people there adapted the Javanese batik, making larger motifs with thicker lines and more colours. In the s, batik was introduced to Australia, where aboriginal artists at Erna Bella have developed it as their own craft.

The fabric is then dyed, and the wax is removed with boiling water to reveal the patterns. This process can be repeated multiple times to created layered patterns with different colors. In the 19th century, artisans commonly used cantings, copper devices that resemble fountain pens, to pour the wax very precisely, allowing for even more detailed patterns.

In the 20th century, the Javanese also developed a wood-block printing technique for batik. And the patterns themselves are not only aesthetic; they were once used to denote social standing, with some specific patterns, such as the knife-like parang pattern, being reserved for royalty.

Other popular patterns include geometric riffs on flora and fauna, including the palm-inspired kawung motif, or representations of abstract concepts like love, shown through the celestial truntum pattern that is commonly worn at weddings. And sometimes the even combine both: the sekar jagad pattern, also commonly worn at wedding, features floral motifs.