Batik is one of ancient traditional printing and dyeing techniques among Chinese ethnic minorities. Battik, tie-dye, and stencil printing are regarded as the top three printing and dyeing techniques in China. The Maio people and Buyi people in Yunnan province and Guizhou province are good at battik technique. Taking wax as resistance, the technique can give a special white-blue pattern to textile, which has unique charm. With rich patterns, simple and elegant color, unique style, battik is widely used in making clothing and other household items
People first paint the pattern with wax on textile, then during the dyeing, the part painted with wax remains white. At the same time, the textile is endowed with many natural drain marks by chapped wax, which makes batik a special charm. For its rich pattern, simple but elegant color and ethnic style, batik is very popular in China.
Development
The technique gained great development during Western Zhou Dynasty (2nd century BC-771 BC) after it was invented. According to Book of Rites, there were officials who took charge of textile dyeing at time. By this, one can see how long the history batik has in China.
Chinese Battik
In Xinjiang area, Mogao Grottoes and other areas, there are many unearthed batiks. Among these cultural relics, the ones of the Northern Dynasty were white-bark blue. And the ones of Tang Dynasty get the background of brown and yellow, what’s more, most of them have white patterns.
Patterns
The themes of the Battik pattern derive from imitation to creatures in nature. According to battik patterns, the themes fall into two general categories, geometric pattern and nature pattern. And nature pattern can be divided into two categories, plant pattern and animal pattern.
Chinese Battik
The plant pattern includes lotus, sunflower, peony and so on. The animal pattern includes ox, dragon, butterfly, tiger, lion, etc. Although these animal images and plant images originates from life and worship to nature, minorities people do some theatrical treatment of image. This treatment not only conveys the characteristics of animals and plants, but has very high artistic generalization ability.
Batik from Ethnic Minority
In the southern part of China, especially in ethnic minority group area in Guizhou Province, batik technique has been handed down from generation to generation. It is very popular among the area, which has been one of the indispensable parts of ethnic minority women in their daily life.
There is an ancient song about batik‘s origin in Miao minority area. There was a smart girl who was not satisfied with the monochrome clothes, wishing to have colorful patterns dyeing on the skirt. Thinking of painting one by one has too much trouble; however, she could not work out other way. One day, she fell asleep among the flowers. When she woke up, she found that the bees had left dotted beeswax on her skirt. She didn’t think it looks good, so she tried to cover it by indigo blue dye. After dyeing, she surprisingly found that the places of beeswax turned out to be the beautiful white patterns. By the inspiration, she painted the cloth with beeswax and dyed it in indigo blue. She was so glad that she found out the way to make the beautiful cloth, hence sangt the song happily. Once heard her songs, people came to her and learnt how to dye the patterns. By this way, the technique spread out among the Miao and Buyi people.
Chinese Battik
In Huangping area and Danzhai County in Guizhou Province, the Miao people take batik as their principle ornament. The women’s scarf, skirt, clothes and leg wrappings as well as some daily utilities, such as bag and handkerchief are made of batik textile. In Anshun and Puding area, Miao women take the batik shreds as their sleeve and rim ornament. Besides blue, they add other colors such as red, yellow and green to the textile. The batiks from different ethnic minorities have their own features. The Miao people, for example, have the same pattern as the ancient brown drum, and the subject matter of folk stories. Among the patterns, there also are flowers, birds, fishes and so on. As to the Buyi people, they are fond of using geometric patterns on batik.
In China, the home to batik is the city of Anshun in Guizhou Province. In 1992, the city held the first International battik festival, attracting many guests both from home and abroad. There are numerous workshops and craftsmen in the city, gaining the art of batik great development. The city also is the important tourism city and transpiration hub of Guizhou Province. The famous Huangguoshu Waterfall is in the area.