Javanese Batik

Indonesian Batik Textiles: The Diversity of Tradition

In Indonesia, batik textiles, which have been produced since the early seventeenth century, remain integral to everyday life, and often play a role in key events such as births, weddings, and funerals.* UNESCO added Indonesian batik to its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009, noting that the making of the textiles and their use are central to Indonesian culture.

Batik is a textile design technique based on resist-dyeing. A plain cotton or silk cloth serves as the ground.** To begin, an artist makes a drawing on paper, and this drawing is then stenciled on the cloth, providing a guide for the application of hot liquid wax. The process for applying the wax distinguishes batik tulis or hand-drawn batik from batik cap or printed batik. As the names indicate, to create batik tulis, an artist applies (hand-draws) the wax with a canting (a pen with a reservoir for the wax) following and interpreting the stenciled design. To create batik cap, a block with a pattern is dipped in wax and stamped on the cloth. The cap speeds up the process, however, it cannot be used for all designs. In both processes, after the wax has cooled, the cloth is submerged in a dye bath and the areas without wax take on color, while the wax-covered areas “resist” the dye. Depending on the number of colors in the design, the wax application and dyeing process may need to be repeated multiple times.

Indonesian batiks capture and convey the diverse forces that have shaped their facture across centuries. Scholars, such as Ruth Barnes, Peter Carey, and Rens Heringa, emphasize the importance of Java as a center of multicultural batik production, although the precise origin of the technique remains a matter of ongoing debate. Regardless, it is clear that Indonesia’s central location in the Indian Ocean world, facilitating the movement of people and material goods to and from China, India, and Japan, and later Europe, paired with ready access to indigenous materials required in the production process, has fostered a vibrant and ever-changing artistic practice. Batik artists have experimented with color, layout, and pattern as they adapt, incorporate, and interpret elements drawn from embroidered, painted, and woven trade textiles (as well as other art objects) into their work. Moreover, immigrants to Indonesia have brought their aesthetic knowledge with them and embraced batik as a mode of artistic expression as well as a viable commercial enterprise.

Batik designers’ adaptation of elements from Chinese textiles surface in a number of works in Dr. Indriati’s collection. A blue and white Long Cloth (Deer in the Jungle) from about 1920 features delicately leaping deer, detailed butterflies and stylized clouds, the two latter motifs ubiquitous in Chinese textiles. Moreover, the color palette suggests an appreciation of ceramics, particularly blue and white porcelain. The butterfly motif also appears on an earlier batik from 1900 (Serendipity) that has a pronounced geometric design, which resembles the fretwork patterns often featured in Chinese art and design (for example, this Sutra Cover in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection). As this batik dates to the turn of the century, it is possible that the designer drew visual inspiration from European Aesthetic Movement and/or Art Nouveau furnishings (or furnishings from earlier periods), which amalgamated elements of Chinese art and design. These batiks thus illuminate the complexities of coloniality and culture in the Indian Ocean world across centuries.

A batik produced in Cirebon, on the northwestern edge of Java, around 1900 (Calligraphic Composition), demonstrates the impact of Islamic art, beliefs, and culture on batik artists and consumers (Islam currently is the predominant faith of people living in Indonesia, and has been since the seventeenth century). The densely patterned scarf features three large eight-pointed stars, or pairs of overlapping squares (rub-el-hizb), and a profusion of looping and scrolling elements that suggest Arabic calligraphic inscriptions as well as apotropaic symbols. The left and right borders of the scarf include a repeating motif that suggests an enclosed bit of script. The framing of text within a larger design likely borrows from established Islamic aesthetic convention (for example, this woven silk and silver textile from Iran (3.280) in the collection of the Textile Museum in Washington, DC).

The Islamicate designs of this scarf resonate strongly with a batik head cloth from Cirebon made during the same period (Basurek Headdress). The head cloth has a mirror repeat with a small-scale geometric ground pattern that references the overall mirrored design. This head cloth also bears a striking similarity to a batik (1987.26.1) in the collection of the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. The border of the Textile Museum’s batik features multiple registers that are echoed in the Basurek Headdress. The breadth and quality of Dr. Indriati’s collection emphasizes the significance of batik textiles across Java and the contemporary works, such as Happy Garden, highlight that the exchange of design knowledge within the Indian Ocean world continues to foster the flourishing of batik as a diverse artistic practice.

Notes

*In Fabric of Enchantment: Batik from the North Coast of Java, From the Inger McCabe Elliott Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1996), Rens Heringa asserts that batik tulis “may not have developed until the early seventeenth century” but goes on to clarify “The decoration of textiles with a resist technique has probably existed in the archipelago since prehistoric times, although no examples predating the nineteenth century survive” (31). Further research may bear out a more specific date for the development of batik tulis, and indeed Ruth Barnes research on carbon dating textiles (“Early Indonesian Textiles: Scientific Dating in a Wider Context”) in the 2010 catalogue Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles: The Mary Hunt Kahlenberg Collection presents exciting possibilities for potentially identifying earlier examples.

**In 2009 Yosephine Komara of BINhouse, along with her husband Roni Siswandi, pioneered batik on cashmere.

Essay by Dr. Erica Warren; you can find more information about Dr. Warren on her website.

References

Judi K. Achjadi and Asmoro Damais. 2006. Butterflies and Phoenixes: Chinese Inspiration in Indonesian Textile Arts. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions.

Ruth Barnes and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, eds. 2010. Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, New York: Delmonico Books.

Ruth Barnes, 1996. “Early Indonesian Textiles: Scientific Dating in a Wider Context” in Fabric of Enchantment: Batik from the North Coast of Java: From the Inger McCabe Elliott Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Weatherhill, Inc.

Peter Carey, 1996. “The World of the Pasisir” in Fabric of Enchantment: Batik from the North Coast of Java: From the Inger McCabe Elliott Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Weatherhill, Inc.

Rens Heringa, 1996. “The Historical Background of Batik on Java” in Fabric of Enchantment: Batik from the North Coast of Java: From the Inger McCabe Elliott Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Weatherhill, Inc.