TEXTILE art is one of the oldest arts known to man. Personal adornment was perhaps the first attempt at expressing beauty. Costume designing and textile industries are still most vital movements in the artistic development of the people.
Asia is the great mother of beauty in textile decoration. We do not talk or write about textiles without using the words of her ancient peoples.
“Batik”—this ancient Asiatic word—is one of the oldest crafts of the Orient. In India, Java and Japan the highest technique is reached. These people have made a great art of costuming. Each caste, religion and festival requires its special garment.
From the historic days when Columbus searched vainly for a shorter way to the fabled riches of the East Indies until the way was found, these treasure islands held the possessions most coveted by the Western World.
More than a thousand years before this time, the neighboring Hindus came to these rich islands bringing with them religious teachers, road makers and skilled craftsmen. Many expeditions fastened upon the native tribes the religion and culture of the older and more civilized country.
While the Spanish, Portuguese and English adventurers were discovering new lands and claiming them for their kings, the Dutch sailors carried to and fro the produce of the world. The Netherland warehouses were filled with treasures of the Orient.
Keeping pace with its industry were the universities and the common schools. The records and drawings of Dutch scholars disclose so much detailed information upon the handicraft industries of the day that the recent revival of batik is traced to their genius.
Books issued by the Dutch Government to promote the batik craft, picture Javanese women and girls seated upon fiber mats before a vertical frame upon which the material is hung for the execution of their art. Men too are at work printing and dyeing these fabrics. Housewives in staid processionals display the occupation. Princes and fine ladies disport their gorgeous costumes. Priests climbing the steps of their temples past the long rows of their sacred gods are resplendent in batik array. Their oldest gods are clothed in sculptured batik.
Designs of great beauty and skilled execution enrich the pages of these rare volumes.
Among the Dutch people much effort has been made to promote this art. Native designs have been fostered and the modifications have been in demand for European trade.
The American adaptation of batik has followed closely upon the European revival.
The Chinese, however, have control of the industry in Java. They employ natives at low wage to make batiks. The home occupation that took no account of time or pains is dying out. In a few years the products of this infinitely better craft will be found only in museums and in the possession of collectors. Under Chinese management batik making has become the leading occupation.
Batik is a method of drawing or painting with wax upon a fabric, after which the material is dyed and the wax removed. The result of this process is a decoration in silhouette upon the dyed background of the goods.
The wax generally used in Java is hot beeswax or a vegetable wax imported from Japan. The wax is removed by scraping and melting. The waxing is repeated as many times as there are colors in the design. The process is long and tedious and often requires months.
Formerly the colors were native vegetable dyes. The most common were indigo, mango tree bark and madder. These colors have fallen into disuse, artificial dyes having replaced them.
The wax resists the action of the dye-bath except where it cracks. Here the dye creeps in, producing the characteristic “crackle” of batik work. The Oriental craftsman never forces crackle. With him it is always an incident, the subtle accident of his handicraft.
The nature of the process forces simple execution in waxing the shapes and outlines, and also limits the number of times the piece may be dyed. Applying the wax becomes increasingly difficult after each dipping. Spotting of color over the entire piece makes thinking in color as important as the painting in of the wax.
The Oriental process of dyeing is the reverse of the American, in that it applies the darkest colors first. This necessitates previous waxing over parts to be kept light and also the removal of the wax and an entire new waxing after each dyeing. The American method is to dye the lightest colors first and build up the deeper colors. Between dyeings the old waxing is repaired and additional areas waxed.
The “sarong,” worn by Javanese natives, is a skirt-like piece of goods about the size and proportion of a window curtain. This garment falls from the waist, or above it, to the feet. The fabric is cheap cotton manufactured in Holland or England. The color and decoration of the sarong is influenced by caste and religion. The feudal framework of Javanese society has given much significance to rank.
The women add to the sarong a “kemban.” This garment is not unlike a blouse without shoulder supports or sleeves. The kemban is wound tightly about the body under the arms. The drapery covers the upper part of the sarong.
The “slendang” completes the wearing apparel of the women. It is a scarf worn for adornment or useful for carrying the youngest child, or other burdens.
The Javanese man wears the sarong in the same manner as the women, which leads the foreigner to awkward misunderstandings. His long hair is done on the top of his head and bound around with a “sarong kapala.” This head dress is tied at the nape of the neck. The sarong kapala is square, and when fitted is starched and shaped to the head.
Among the poorer classes these garments are plain, usually dark blue, for daily wear, but on occasions they are vivid with color decorations.
The native worker prepares his cotton goods by soaking in oil, afterwards in lye. This process is repeated until the material is softened and a pleasing yellow gray.
Hand decoration is done by women. The material is hung over an upright frame. The hand supports the goods, and the molten wax is applied to the design. They use a funnel-like cup with a bamboo handle. The wax trickles slowly through the slender tube, and with this the outline is made. This instrument is called a “tjanting.” There is no right or wrong side of this fabric, as the waxing is done on both sides. To cover large surfaces with wax, they use a brush. These women have acquired a high degree of skill through repetition of the same design on the same kind of garment.
The wooden frame over which the goods are fastened is moveable. The wax is melted over an earthen heater with an open side, into which the ends of long sticks are thrust for burning.
Although the tjanting is the more desired and versatile device for applying wax, the men wax batiks with “tjaps.” The tjap is a wooden block with designs of metal insert. The craftsman sits on a low stool in front of an inclined table over which the goods are smoothly spread. The bottom of a shallow pan is covered with wax, heated in the same manner as for the tjanting. An absorbent pad is placed in the pan, the tjap is pressed on the pad and imprinted on the fabric. The fabric is then turned and, with another tjap made like the first except with its symmetry reversed, wax imprints are made in exactly the same places. This insures good waxing on both sides of the fabric. The piece is then ready for the dye.
Sometimes a set of many tjaps is used to work out a pattern for a sarong or other garment. The making of these tjaps is the laborious and expensive work of experts. Of course we may expect to find many repetitions of such patterns, differing from one another only in the accidents of dyeing.
Frequently different methods of applying wax are used in the same decoration. Freehand work with the tjanting and brush on fine pieces serve to take away from the mechanical reproduction of tjap designs. The decoration of the end papers of this book, taken from a fine old sarong, affords an interesting study.
The most artistic and highly regarded effects in batiks among the Japanese workers are executed as they are in America today, i.e., the wax is applied with a brush and is as free from mechanical aids as painting.
Pieter Mijer, in “Batiks and How to Make Them,” published by Dodd Mead & Company, New York, writes of the modern development of batiks in Holland. The artists who have stimulated the present interest are Cris Lebeau, Dijesselhof and Lion Cachet. The illustrations of their work have a charm and individuality worthy of the highest respect. The author’s own piece shown in the same group does not lose by comparison.
This book is also rich in valuable instruction and other illustrations of batiks, showing high American standards of the craft.
Batik adaptation in America is without tradition, and is an outgrowth of youth and enthusiasm caught up and carried on the high tide of progress and opportunity. The real significance of its popularity reaches backward into the necessity that confronted workers in textile designing after Europe was caught in the maelstrom of war.
The textile manufacturer has quickly adapted batik designs, indeed the artist working in batiks feels a close kinship to textile industry.
Batik decoration is free from limitations that restrict mechanical printing. In designing fabrics for the ordinary methods of mechanical reproduction, where great yardage is produced, the designer consults an average taste; whereas in batiks each piece is definitely designed with a particular setting or individual in view. There is no necessity for much repetition of any design, nor indeed can exact copy ever be made.
The first enthusiasm of the worker in batiks is apt to find expression in a burst of color run riot, of “crackle craze,” with too little attention paid to design. But this soon gives way, as it should, to more conservative expression in which design is the controlling element, and the art comes to its own as a method of subtle and beautiful illumination of textiles.