Batik Art & Resist Dyeing
Batik is believed to be at least 2000 years old.
It can be defined as a method of applying a colored design on to textiles by waxing those parts that are not to be dyed. Evidence of its practice has been discovered in most Eastern and Middle Eastern countries including India, China, Japan, Persia and Egypt, but although its actual source is unknown, it was on the island of Java in Indonesia that the art reached its peak development.
Batik Methods
The basic process of batik is simple. It consists of permeating an area of fabric with hot wax so that the wax resists the penetration of dye.
If the cloth to be dyed is white bleached cotton, linen, or silk, then wherever hot wax is applied will remain white in the final design. After the first waxing the fabric is dipped into a dye bath whose color is the lightest tone of those to be used. When the piece has dried, we see an area of white and an area of cloth that is the color of the first dyeing. Wax is now applied to those parts in which we wish to retain the first color, and the entire fabric is immersed in the second dye bath whose color is darker in tone than the first. This process is repeated until the darkest tone required in the final design has been achieved. When the fabric, now almost wholly waxed, has dried it is placed between sheets of absorbent paper and a hot iron applied. As the sheets of paper absorb the wax they are replaced by fresh sheets until the wax is removed. At this point the final design is seen clearly for the first time. Some African Batiks may use a reverse order of dyeing, with dark colors first.
Paraffin and beeswax are the two waxes most commonly used in batik and are usually combined in different proportions.
A painter uses pigment; a batik artist uses dyes. A painter may completely obliterate an undesirable color by covering it with another color. In batik, however, each color used is significantly affected by the proceeding color. The only pure color is the first one, so all other colors used are mixtures, determined largely by the first color.
Batik Paintings are produced by brushing molten wax onto a piece of cloth. The cloth is then painted with, or dipped into a dye which adheres to all areas not covered by the wax. The wax is then removed, and the process repeated over and over again for each color used. It is an exceptionally time consuming process that yields an exceptionally high quality work of art.
History of Batik
It was around 1500 that travelers first brought back tales of highly artistic batik fabric on which people worked for months on end. At the close of the last century the technique was introduced to European arts and crafts. Batik, a traditional technique from Java, Indonesia, in which a wax resist is applied by hand, was introduced into Africa by European traders.
The word "batik" is Indonesian in origin. It also occurs in Javanese as Ambatik, which actually means drawing and writing. Batik has evolved around the principle that wax and water repel each other, therefore an area of fabric that has been covered with wax is unable to accept dye. The Indonesian word "tik", meaning a drop (referring to the small drops of hot wax), shows how the word batik was derived.
BATIK
Batik has come to be used as a generic term which refers to the process of dyeing fabric by making use of a resist technique; covering areas of cloth with a dye-resistant substance to prevent them absorbing colors.
The batik technique offers unique possibilities for artistic freedom as patterns are applied by actual drawing rather than by weaving with thread. The colors in Batik are much more resistant to wear than those of painted or printed fabrics because the cloth is completely immersed in dye and the areas not protected by resist are allowed to absorb hues to the extent that the colors will not easily fade.
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