Batik – Bridging Generations

By Leong Tuck Yee

Batik is both a craft and art and refers to a wax-resist dying technique used on fabric. The word comes from Javanese "amba" and "titk", meaning "to write" and "to dot". The exact history is uncertain but fragments of batik was discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs, the evidence dating back to the first century.

This method of decorating cloth has been practised for over a thousand years and can be found in far East, Middle East, Central Asia and India but reached the greatest peak of achievement only in Bali and in the islandof Java, particularly Vogyakarta and Solo. In 1835, the Dutch began producing it while the Germans mass produced it in the 1900s. In Malaysia, batik was raised to fine art in 1940s by Dato' Chuah Thean Teng, declared the "father" of batik painting.

Batik making is a complicated, drawn-out process of repeatedly applying dyes and wax to a fabric which can be cotton or silk. As many as fifteen time-consuming rounds of dyeing, waxing and drying can be carried out before a picture is finished. Should a mistake happen somewhere in between, the feat will have to start all over again.

Waxing with molten wax is done on the fabric to block (or resist) dyes from colouring a particular area intended to be covered by the artist. Tools used for waxing can be a brush or a Tjanting which is a wooden handled tool attached to a tiny metal cup with a tiny spout, out of which the wax seeps through onto the fabric. Thin lines and dots can be made with it. When the unwaxed areas have been dyed, the fabric is boiled in water to remove the wax before drying the fabric. Then a fresh layer of molten wax is applied to parts of the cloth which the artist does not want to colour with dyes of a different colour. Then the fabric is again dipped into a dye of the same or different colour. The processes go on until the entire painting is complete.

Historically, batik is the most expressive and subtle of the resist methods. Different techniques include the Tie & Dye, Batik Salt, Batik Perada, Shiburi or Cracked Batik. Contemporary batik is markedly different from the traditional styles as an artist may employ etching, discharge dyeing, different tools for dyeing and waxing, different wax recipes or work with wool, leather, paper or even ceramics and wood. There are also convenient, ready-made dyes that can be “painted” directly onto fabric. Mass production of batik is carried out by applying molten wax to precarved wooden or metal wire block and stamping on the fabric. The ever widening range of techniques available offers the artist opportunities to explore a unique process in a flexible and exciting way.

Chuah Thean Teng, for example, has experimented with the process to produce a wide range of effects, one of which was by using sunlight to create subtle variations. His mastery of the techniques allowed him to express his spirit and feeling in his bold sweeping lines which flow with a sense of rhythm. He has also trained his children - Siew Teng, Seow Keng and Siew Kek - into fine batik artists of their own rights. Another batik artist who has spent decades to uplift the craft into fine art is Fatimah Chik. Her textured, ornate and decorative abstract works are done with printing blocks, waxing, dyeing and meticulous hand-coloured finishing - a style uniquely of her own. Continuing the millennia-old tradition, Emilia Tan, belonging to the new generation, explored the techniques further, making up her own rules and even experimented with batik in the form of mosaics.

[ Courtesy September 2007 Cosmic]