The Wealth of Batik

Indonesian Batik is filled with techniques, symbols, and supreme artistic values.

Friday, 2 October 2009; the weather in Abu Dhabi or United Arab Emirates was rather bright and not so hot, thanks to the breezes of wind that come and go. The sky was also blue, as if providing a shade for the city that is located at 24°28’ Northern Latitude and 54°22’ Eastern Longitude. Skyscraper buildings stood tall, strong and luxurious. At one of the most known buildings in the City of Abu Dhabi that afternoon, the Committee of 24 countries from Unesco (United Educational, Scientific, and Culture Organization) at their last assembly decided and declare officially the enlisting of Batik into the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Indonesian Batik becomes a part of 76 arts and traditions of the 27 countries that Unesco claimed in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage through the decision of 24 countries committee that assembled seriously before determining their official declarations. In-donesian Batik was perceived as filled with techniques, symbols, and cultures those are inseparable from the community since their birth to their death. The good news was of course taken whole-heartedly by the Indonesian nation while keep on praising Almighty God.

The announcement of batik’s enlisting in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage – Unesco in Abu Dhabi or United Arab Emirates; becomes a great pride to Indonesia. Doddy Soepar-di of the Indonesian Batik Foundation Guidance Council claimed to be optimistic that batik will evolve more in the future. Along with the progresses of designer products, motives or varieties of batik will also experience significant evolution. Unesco’s declaration towards batik affirmed it to be the third Indonesian cultural heritage that is approved globally. Before this, Unesco has declared wayang/ shadow puppet (2003) and the keris (2005) as the master-pieces of verbal culture and intangible cultural heritage.

The Minister of Culture and Tourism; Jero Wacik said that, with global approval toIndonesian batik, the obligation of Indonesian society to preserve the nation’s heritage becomes more evident. “We do not forbid other nations from using Indonesia’s cultural products. However, when there are claims or admissions of them as the possession of other countries, we must not stay still,” he affirmed.

This international affirmation of Indonesian batik does not mean that the Indonesian people themselves do not appreciate batik. The evolu-tion of batik must remain, so it will always be a part of the people’s daily lives. Indonesian government is also aspired to strengthen the promotion. Thus, the existing batik centrals can progress and will be able to present more uniqueness in batik creations.

Indonesian Batik was enlisted in the Representative List of Intan-gible Cultural Heritage due to the historical, philosophical, and re-ligious aspects that found the creating process. Unesco judgment is not just the Indonesian batik pattern that is worldly acclaimed.

The acclamation of United Nations towards Indonesian Batik is a form of pride that also escalates the nationalism of the Indonesian nation. This international appreciation is hoped to resurrect the batik industry in the regions. And batik must also be understood and not only seen as a mere outfit. Batik is the reflection of Indonesian national culture, the indepen-dent and creative customs.

According to Hasanudin – a batik designer – in his book titled Coastal Batik Tracks the Influence of Religious Trading Ethos in the Various Decorative of Batik (2001), the influence of Chinese, Indian and Islamic cultures is rather immense in forming the vari-ous decorative of the nation’s textile and batik. Chinese various decorative is portrayed dynamic such as a meander that is rhyth-mically arranged, the shape of clouds, swastika that faces right or the entwining spirals. Aside from that the motives of phoenix bird and dragons in motion also comes from Chinese influence.

It is not only motives those are related to the existence of ba-tik. The definition of batik itself is inseparable from the pro-cess of batik creating which uses the dip-cover process; that is to dip in coloring substance, the cloth that has been covered by malam on certain parts.

Yan Yan Sunarya, the lecturer of the Fine-Arts and Design Faculty of Bandung Technological Institute explained that if the making process does not go through the dip-cover method, then the produced item cannot be called batik. The process of batik it-self consists of design, malam printing (using canting/ stamp/ brush), coloring (dip/ colet), color enhancing, drying, and rinsing by pelodon (malam rinsing). The pelodon rinsing is the last phase and afterwards the batik cloth is ready to be made into wardrobes or inte-rior designs as required.

The history of batik in Indonesia comprise of two kinds of batiks those are characterized based on the producer and production location, which are the kraton batik (Sura-karta and Jogjakarta) and coastal batik. Kraton batik is meant only to serve the interest of kings, palace officials, and palace employees, including the soldiers. Aside be-ing assigned for the king’s “official wear”, batk is also used in weddings, birth, death, and dance art. It is also used in various palace traditional ceremonies. Batik cloths are often used as sarongs, long dress, tube top, shirt, head wrap, scarf, and wall interior decoration.

At the times of Mataram Islamic empire in Jogjakarta and Surakarta, Yan Yan Sunarya told, the making of ba-tik cloths with the expression of artistic values with vari-ous complex, detailed and soft decora tive was developed. Making batik was even made as the symbol of well-man-nered upbringing of the royal families.

In its journey, the antithesis of kraton batik is the coastal batik. This batik is produced at the coastal re-gions of Java, all the way from Indramayu, Cirebon, Pekalongan, Lasem, Rembang, Juwana, Tuban, Sido-arjo, Pacitan, through Madura. What differs the two is that coastal batik is the batik that is produced beyond the walls of kraton palace. The batik workers in Sura-karta and Jogjakarta those are beyond the walls of the palace are categorized in the coastal batik. This batik is also called by market batik, because the production of the batik is meant for retails and wears by the public society and does not go by social strata.

In Indonesia, for any official events, the gov-ernment officials and President all the way down to Head of the Village also wears ba-tik. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the ministers, members of the Board of Public Representation and other elite of-ficials along with the ambassadors from neighboring countries also wear batik in various national or ceremonial events.

History proves that batik is the result of Javanese society traditional cultural process that is inherit for generations. Even so, back then it was not yet called batik-printing. As the Grand Master of Archeology from Gaah Mada University, Timbul Haryono, the technique for cloth processing has been known even before the Hindu era in the Nation at about the 4th Century. The evident is cited in num-bers of ancient artifacts and statues.

Numbers of artifacts from the 9th Cen-tury acclaim that, the types of cloths pro-cessed are done through a technique sim-ilar to batik. One of them is the Balitung Artifacts that tells the story of a palace ball. “The description of this cloth is similar to the technique now known as batik. From these evident I’m convinced that batik is a Javanese native culture,” Timbul said.

The evident was also supported by the apparels on ancient statues. The motives on those stat-ues’ apparels have similarities to the kawung batik that is known nowadays. However, the origin of the word “batik” is still yet to be traced until now. From the likeness of sound, some assume that “batik” is made of two Java-nese words, which are “amba” and “titik” that means to make dots. But still, there is no solid proof of that assumption.

Timbul said that batik is not a sudden inven-tion. The processing technique is the result of a cultural process that is inherited for generations. The history of batik development in Java itself has even begun since prehistoric time. “But since the evident is rather minimal, then it is hard to trace,” he claimed.

The batik workers in Giriloyo and Karangtengah, I,ogiri, ad-mit that their skills in batik printing is inherited from gen-erations. Their ancestor’s skills came from the Keraton Jogja-karta. “This is inevitable from the regional factor that is close to the graveyard of Imogiri past kings. They are taught by the palace people during visits to the grave,” revealed Suryati (35), a craftswoman of Karangrejek, Karangtengah.

Untl now, there are at least 40 batik workers in Karangten-gah. They use natural coloring with two methods, which are hand-drawn and stamp. The stamp batik just came out recently because consumers often complain about the high price of hand-drawn batik. The said work is sold for Rp. 250 thousand up per cloth, while stamp batik is only for Rp. 50 to 100 thousand per cloth.

It is a totally different way with the traditional batik workers of Banaran, Kulon Progo. They perceive that the batik acclamation from Unesco has done nothing to escalate their livelihood. As long as there is no pride in wearing local batik cloths, the workers will remain in a bad condition. Widodo, a worker from Banaran even bet that out of all the people who wear batik this Friday, not even 10 percent is put-ting on local batik. The majority must wear Pekalongan or Solo batik those are less costly.

In fact, it is the print batik that really sets in the market. What is con-sidered truly batik are those of hand-drawn, stamp, and the combina-tion of both. Print batik is only cloth in batik motive. According to Murdjato Gardjito, General Secretary of the Sekar Jagad Batik Lovers Community, print batik will only destrot traditional batik industry, and also put a scar on the face of Indonesia. Low price has always been the appeal of print batik, such as those sold along the street of Malioboro. Tourists, especially locals, purchase them in bulks as sou-venirs for family and relatives. (Source: Arti magazine, and various other sources).

Teks by Rusdy Setiawan Putra.
Was publish at arti special edition page 38 - 42.