Unlike tulis, which is made by women, batik made by a printing block, or cap, is the work of men. Each man stands at a padded table with his own wax and caps, imprinting the white cotton.
The cemplogen, often used in tulis batik, punctures wax that has been poured onto a solid background. Dye penetrates these holes, producing hundreds of tiny dots on the finished batik Cemplogens are especially common to the Indramayu area.
Of several new production systems two were important. In the first, the work was organized by villages. Cloth and patterns would be consigned to women in a particular village by entrepreneurs or their agents, and the entire tulis process would be completed in that village. Either that, or people in one village might be assigned only to wax the cloth; middlemen would then take the waxed cloth to another village for dyeing and finishing.
The second system of production was an attempt to industrialize. Entrepreneurs established a series of batik factories, mostly on the north coast, so that they could control the quality of the cloth, designs, wax, and dyes. They introduced new motifs and techniques. With the introduction of aniline dyes at the end of the nineteenth century and synthetic dyes twenty years later, they were able to change the spectrum of colors. The factories proved that batik, even if hand drawn, need no longer be made at home. Batik, both cap and tulis—and sometimes a combination of the two—was now more readily available to a growing market.
Dye recipes are passed from generation to generation. Stones are often used to weigh down the batik while it is immersed in the secret dye.
Dyeing and Finishing. A well-executed dye is judged by its rich penetrating tone, the degree to which it is colorfast, and how well it resists abrasion. Small wonder that, in batik making, dye recipes are as secret as the wax mixtures, often passed by word of mouth from one generation to the next. Originally, the colors found in batik reflected the place of origin, as well as the cultural attitudes of the people who produced them. That is usually not the case today.
Though synthetic dyes have now largely replaced natural dyes, it was from nature that batik received its original colors. Certain roots and leaves of plants are known to produce color when boiled and mixed with special ingredients. Local water and local plant species greatly affect shades of color and thus each region of Java was to have its own characteristic tints.
Among the many colors found in Javanese batik, four are by far the most popular. The most common one, also believed to be the oldest, is indigo, derived from the plant of the same name and called torn by the Javanese. Forty of indigo's many species produce this particular shade of blue. Batik using this blue is called biron (from biru, the Javanese word for "blue").
A second common dye is mengkudu, a deep red from the bark and roots of the Morinda citrifolia plant; batik using this color is called bangbangan from abang, meaning red. Tegerang, from the Cudriana javanesis plant, is yellow. And soga is a rich, uniquely Javanese brown characteristic of batik from the central Javanese towns of Yogyakarta and Surakarta; it comes from the bark of the Pelthophorum ferrugineum tree. The Mangkunegara family in Surakarta was famous for its method of dying cloth with soga and the process is still used today by a family member, Ibu Praptini.
After each waxing cycle in the batik process, the cloth is ready to be dyed. In batches of twelve kodi—one kodi equals twenty pieces of batik—the cloths are placed in appropriate dye baths three times a day for ten days. They are then put into a bath of lime and water, which sets the dye. Traditionally on the fourth Sunday of each month the batik is dried on bamboo racks, ready for sale.
Under ordinary circumstances, cloth is usually dyed in boiling solutions. Not so with batik. Because wax has such a low melting point, batik must be dyed in a cold or lukewarm bath. This solution contains a pharmacopoeia of secret ingredients to facilitate penetration of the dye into the fiber and to enhance the luster of the finished batik. These mysterious potions include oils from fruit seeds, brown palm sugar, fermented casava, bananas, even shredded chicken.
Caps were first developed in the 1850s to "industrialize" the batik process. Made of copper, the finer ones today are collectors' items.
The cloth is immersed as often as necessary in a coloring vat to achieve the desired shade. It is then soaked in another solution of lye and water, to fix the dye. After each color has been set the wax is scraped off and reapplied; sometimes additional designs are drawn on the cloth between dyeings. Overdyeing is used to produce certain colors. Green, for example, starts off as a light blue (from indigo), which is then overdyed in a yellow bath; black is produced similarly, by overdyeing indigo with red or brown.
At the turn of the century, advances in science and technology produced synthetic dyes that gradually replaced the natural dyes of the Indies. Aniline dyes were used after 1898 in Java, and naphthol dyes became available in 1926. Other synthetic dyes used today include synthetic indigo, reactive, and Indrathrene dyes, which are easy to maintain and use and do not require the long preparation of natural dyes. Synthetic dyes made possible the pastel tints and jeweled tones so characteristic of north-coast Javanese batiks.
After dyeing is completed and the last of the wax is either scraped or boiled from the cloth, the finished batik is draped over bamboo racks or laid on the ground to dry. It is then folded and put under a press for "ironing." If the batik is destined for Chinese customers, another process takes place before the cloth leaves the factory: shells are rubbed across the surface of the cloth to give it a chintzlike quality. After a thorough rubbing—usually done by two men who sit on a bench facing each other with the batik between them—the piece is shiny and crinkly, a Chinese preference when buying "new" cloth. Numerous washings will eventually remove this chintzlike surface.
Wax is boiled from the cloth to prepare it for the next waxing and final wash.
After dyeing is completed and the last of the wax is laid out to dry, as in this Surakarta cooperative, which dyes and dries cloth for local batik manufacturers.
When the batik is finally ready for packaging, each piece is folded and wrapped in cellophane. Five pieces are bound together by pattern, not color, and counted by kodi. Special tulis pieces are always boxed or wrapped individually, while yardage goods are normally rolled on tubes.
Let us now look at the spectacular works of art created in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by this intricate process. Here is a visual archive of the geographic and historic forces that have pressed upon Java for centuries. Batik was recast by the coastal Javanese eye into a vibrant cloth with a diverse artistic vocabulary. The following pages chronicle some of the finest examples.