WEBZINE ACC

The emergence and development of the Indonesian Batik

The Batik exhibition in Asia Culture Museum’s permanent exhibition, “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia”

The Batik is a form of dyeing that creates different colors and patterns on fabrics. The technique involves using beeswax, a fatty substance and natural waterproofing agent, on certain areas of the fabric to prevent the dye from penetrating during the dyeing process. Areas that are thus left uncolored are dyed in other colors or left alone to create patterns.

This kain panjang is a skirt-like wrapper featured in the exhibition “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia,” acquired in Java in the early 20th century. It demonstrates a delicate and masterful use of the batik techniques in the stark contrast of deep red and blue horizontally and vertically.

It is difficult to tell where this technique originates, as similar dyeing techniques, different in material or details, can be found across Europe, Egypt, India, Southeast Asia, and China. However, the term “batik,” the name we use today for this dyeing technique, originates from Javanese. It has a Javanese origin because the region that exemplifies this technique is Indonesia, specifically Java. The batik artifacts on display in the Asia Culture Museum’s exhibition “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia” were all made and acquired from the Indonesian island of Java.

Patola from the Gujarat region of India, 18th Century. ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art(www.metmuseum.org)

The origins of the Indonesian Batik began as a dyeing technique that imitated the ikat method used in the creation of the Indian fabric patola, namely making patterns using threads that have been dyed in advance. Patola, especially from the Patan region of the western Indian state of Gujarat, bears many similarities to the Indonesian Batik regarding overall composition, patterns, and uses. However, Indonesians went beyond simple imitation and added their patterns, new techniques of expression, and colorful colors using natural dyes from the tropics to their art of Batik. In doing so, they created a unique and distinctive textile craft different from patola. Indonesia’s distinctive batik culture was centered on the Sultanate of Mataram, its successor, the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, and other royal and aristocratic families on the island of Java.

This is the kain panjang with parang rusak patterns exhibited in “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia,” acquired from Java in the early 20th century. This work uses the batik method to color the fabric first, then uses gold flakes as decoration.

Skilled batik artisans were sponsored by royal and aristocratic families, continuing the tradition while experimenting with new designs and colors. In the process, the technique became popularized and commercialized concurrently. The Batik was increasingly consumed by a wide range of people across social strata, including the official and warrior classes, wealthy merchants, and the common people, who wore the batik clothing for special occasions such as weddings. In the process, certain groups came to monopolize certain patterns. The so-called “forbidden patterns,” represented by the parang rusak, were reserved for the Mataram royal family and certain members of the aristocracy descending from royalty. The taboos and prohibitions on certain patterns indicate that the lower classes’ desire to emulate the royalty’s clothing was strong.

Batik, a (very) early example of globalization?

At the start of its expansion in Indonesia in the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company only had a small foothold in the northern side of Java, around Batavia. However, in the 19th century, the East India Company was dissolved, and direct rule was imposed on Indonesia. To that end, the Dutch began to study Indonesian history and culture and began founding educational organizations modeled after the Parisian L’Ecole Speciale des Langues Orientales. The origin of ACC’s Nusantara collection, the Indian Institute (Indische Instelling) of the city of Delft, was one such organization. Experts in history, anthropology, archaeology, and other fields collected and studied materials and used the collection to train colonial administrators.

This way, Indonesian cultural products were introduced directly to the Netherlands, and interest in them gradually grew. The Batik patterns began to appear in paintings depicting Javanese clothing and in textile product pamphlets. Regardless of its origins, the Java batik began to be recognized as a specialty product representing the Netherlands East Indies’ clothing culture, creating an international demand for the Batik.

Commercializing the Batik during this period was, paradoxically, driven by the Chinese diaspora in Java. By the mid-19th century, powerful Chinese capitalists began to transform the Batik from a household craft into a factory-based industry. They introduced new patterns and colors that reflected the tastes of their European clients in addition to traditional Indonesian patterns and colors, and they were not shy about introducing chemical dyes as well. Indigenous producers also entered the fray, but they could not compete with the Chinese in capital and labor, and their rivalry developed into a serious conflict that became a social issue in the early 20th century. While some premodern aspects of this production process resembled the domestic system, the Indonesian Batik, from the mid-19th century onward, was produced and consumed clearly in the context of modern capitalism.

Cotton harvested by enslaved people traded through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the South America was sold to textile factories in the North or Europe. Steamships carrying mass-produced textiles from Western factories arrived at the port in northern Indonesia, and Chinese “coolies” unloaded and placed them onto carts heading toward batik plants. Under the division of labor, textiles were dyed in different colors, and once completed, the batik was once again relayed to the “coolies”, who loaded them back to ships to be sold to consumers around the world. Thus, the Indonesian batik settled into its place among the grand flow of capital. This “modern” batik, different from the traditional batik, became a channel for the people of the world to embody the Indonesian batik.

The Batik, produced in Pekalongan, a province in northern Java, was exhibited as a part of the “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia” exhibition. It is a typical example of a flower bouquet–patterned Batik.

During this process, the Batik began to be mass-produced, and its form expanded from traditional garments such as sarong (skirts), slendang (shawls), and scarves to encompass upholstery, tablecloths, and dyed fabrics with colorful patterns and pictorial elements. In particular, the Pekalongan region of northern Java produced flower bouquet-patterned Batik, also known as batik nyonya, textiles featuring colorful flowers and plants that reflected European consumers’ tastes and were exported worldwide. In this process, the word “batik,” from the Javanese language, became a generic noun for textiles with intricate and beautiful patterns dyed several times in different colors using beeswax as a waterproofing agent.

Indonesia’s diversity, integrated in batik

In the early 20th century, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands imposed the “Ethical Policy” on Indonesia. Accordingly, the Dutch modified their tyrannical colonialism over the Indonesian people, providing for welfare, education, and limited legal rights and protections. In the process, Indonesia, which was divided into various kingdoms, islands, and tribes, was defined as the “Dutch East Indies as one imagined entity,” and organizing its culture and history began in earnest. In the process, “batik” was highlighted as a textile culture that encompassed all of Indonesia.

This period photograph of a woman in traditional batik dress standing next to a man in Westernized attire illustrates how the Batik, despite its restriction to “women,” was becoming a “unique” and “historic” cultural element of Indonesia. The Batik was gradually embraced as a cultural code and source of pride beyond the confines of Java for all of Indonesia. Modern education under the Dutch government and the authoritative interpretation of “tradition” by nationalist intellectuals through various media outlets contributed to this process. This was accompanied by other developments in other areas, including language.

After its independence in 1949, Indonesia continued this “colonial legacy” of a unified Indonesia by promoting the idea of “Unity in Diversity” (bhinneka tunggal ika). In the process, the Java batik, which was nurtured in the geographically limited space of Java, came to be considered as a traditional and historic clothing culture that embodies the “spirit of Indonesia.” Thus, in today’s Indonesia, the Batik is considered a national symbol that represents their unique culture and “Indonesian-ness.” Indonesians describe the Batik as “the epitome of Indonesian-ness,” “the national costume,” “the soul of Java,” and “the spirit of Indonesia,” and see it as a unifying element of the nation that goes beyond traditional clothing and textile dyeing techniques. However, even within Indonesia, the Batik is a culture with regional and ethnic limitations, namely that of Java.

President Suharto and the Batik’s rediscovery

President Suharto visits Western and Central Java in a batik shirt, April 6, 1970. ⓒWikimedia Commons

During the colonial period, the Batik was often perceived as feminine rather than masculine or as traditional and “conventional” wear for women in contrast to the “modern” men in Western suits. On the other hand, men began to wear Western shirts and pants in formal settings, which gradually became the official dress of colonial space. By the early 1900s, as Dutch direct rule over Indonesia was coming to its zenith, Westernized trousers and suits for men and the batik sarongs and kebayas for women began to be perceived as the official attire in Indonesia.

Much of the credit for overcoming the Batik’s “femininity” and reestablishing the Batik as an outfit for the Indonesian people can be given to President Suharto (1921–2008; in power 1968–1998), who, unlike his predecessor Sukarno (1901–1970), who never wore the Batik in public during his presidency (1950–1967), attended national and international events with his wife, Siti Hartinah (1923–1996), in Batik. In response to Sukarno’s efforts, Jakarta’s governor, Ali Sadikin (1926–2008), issued an ordinance designating Batik as official men’s clothing in July 1972, a practice that gradually spread to other parts of the country. Schools, hitherto adopting Westernized clothing as uniforms since Dutch rule, also began to change their uniforms to the Batik.

The Batik costumes thus became a ubiquitous and ingrained aspect of Indonesian “vernacular culture,” with frequent exposure in education and state ceremonies, in public spaces like government offices, and media outlets such as television. In particular, the wearing of the Batik by the highest political decision-maker in a national ceremony has conferred a new sense of authority on the Batik. In this process, the cultural origin of the Batik in Java was gradually forgotten and was replaced by Indonesia. In addition, as the Batik began to be featured in education and literature, it became a fundamental part of Indonesia’s identity that was not shared by the neighboring countries.

“Batik” as Indonesian, and only Indonesian

The APEC Indonesia 1994, hosted by Suharto in Bogor, Indonesia, marked another milestone in the history of the “Indonesian” Batik. The Indonesian government commissioned a batik fashion designer Iwan Tirta (1935–2010) to create outfits for the sixteen heads of state and two economic ministers attending the summit. Iwan Tirta designed batik shirts with eighteen different patterns, reinterpreting the cultural traditions and symbols of each country within the batik pattern.

The host, President Suharto of Indonesia, attended the summit, as well as President Bill Clinton of the United States, President Jiang Zemin of China, and President Kim Young-sam of South Korea, and thus drew great international attention. On November 15, 1994, the day of the summit, images of the heads of state wearing exotic and colorful batik shirts in an official setting spread worldwide through the mass media. This event brought the Batik into the international spotlight as much as the content of The Bogor Declaration, a plan for prosperity for Asia-Pacific nations. This Batik event in the 1994 APEC summit contributed to the rise of the Indonesian Batik as the internationally dominant form of the craft over competition with other countries, especially Malaysia and India.

Asia-Pacific heads of state attending the 1994 APEC Summit in Bogor, Indonesia. ⓒAPEC (www.apec.org)

In 2009, the Indonesian government finally managed to have the “Indonesian Batik” inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. The “Batik” is a textile art practiced in various countries, each with its own unique form. In particular, Malaysia, which has shared the same culture for a long time, has a significant sense of love and attention toward the practice and was thus competing with Indonesia for the inscription. Nevertheless, Indonesia successfully obtained the Batik’s inscription as the “Indonesian Batik,” rather than a joint inscription. Today, Indonesia is recognized internally and externally as having the “sole and exclusive right” to the batik. The day of the inscription (October 2) is now known as the National Batik Day in Indonesia. The idea that the Batik contains the “united soul” of Indonesia is no longer the domain of the “imagined,” but rather an “official” one.

Go to the Asia Culture Museum Permanent Exhibition, “A World Unveiled by Monsoon: Port Cities of Southeast Asia”