Batik: Royal Art of Indonesia (cont.)

Batik is one of several "court arts", along with shadow play of wayang purwa, court dances, gamelan or authentic Javanese percussion orchestra, and poetry. The art is an extension of the philosophy based on the spiritual discipline. Control, etiquette, and harmony are of central importance to the Javanese. Any conflicts in design or style are to be avoided.

Batik incorporates a few elements of meditation. Breathing and total concentration are of necessity to draw fine, even lines with canting. Batik drawing requires calm and peaceful psychological state; observing it also induces a meditative state of mind. Controlled breathing is essential in painting batik. Like court dancers and gamelan perfomers, batik painter must clear one's mind through fasting or abstinence.

The ego must be contained to achieve a perfect harmony between the mind and the batik technique or design. A superior batik is synonymous with harmony.


Old Javanese court dancers


Breathing and total concentration
are of necessity to draw fine,
even lines with canting
The design vocabulary for batik is derived from various aesthetic orientations and often inspired by rituals. The upper-classes participated in the rituals and undoubtedly contributed in defining the batik designs. Geometric patterns prevalent at the court were motifs like the ceplok, the kawung, the nitik and the lereng or garis miring

Ceploks or Ceplokan are geometric designs with figuratives and epitomes of the living things, such as flowers, buds seeds, fruit-stones and sometimes even animals.

Kawung was the favorite motif of the Sultan of Yogyakarta's Royal Court. For many years the motif was forbidden to all but the members of Sultan's immediate family. The history of kawung goes back to the 8th century with the wall of the Shivatik Prambanan temple as the evidence.

Nitiks, like the word batik, comes from the word root syllable of tik, meaning drop or droplet. This fact has led some scholars to assert the motif as the most ancient of all.


Kawung motif Nitik motif
Patterns known as lereng(slope) and garis miring(slanted lines) run diagonally. The best-known type of lereng is the group of parang motif. Its age and origins have been fiercely disputed, thus giving the motif its popularity. Some even trace it back to the times of Raden Panji, the hero from the 11th century East Javanese Kingdom of Kediri and Jenggala.

As the technique of batiking became widespread, batik was beginning to be popular amongst the people outside the royal court. More and more people coveted the fashion of the royal taste-makers. To maintain their exclusivity and distinction, the aristocracy soon created some forbidden patterns or pola larangan.

The exclusivity started as a custom, and it was later decreed that certain patterns were prohibited to be worn by people outside the royal court. The governing classes were bequeathed with certain magical power, often expressed in special designs.

The prohibited patterns were, in principal, the diagonal motifs. The parang rusak motif was reserved for the highest court circles. The majestic parang rusak barong was traditionally a sacred motif, used only by the king's most magnificant ceremonial robes or as part of the offering to the spirits of the royal ancestors.

To further set apart the royal court batik design from the common batik, a technique of gold leaf application was devised, known as prada or pinarada mas. The technique involved gluing pure gold leaf onto the batik. A unique glue was utilized, which was consisted of Chinese fish glue, mixed with water in which the ash from jangkang fruit was dissolved.

Gold leaf was used mostly to enhance the beauty of bridal batik. The most magnificent examples were found at the court of the Sultan of Yogyakarta. At the palace of the Susuhunan of Surakarta, the prada was used to beautify the large court batik called kampuhs or dodots.

Today, wearing or collecting batik is no longer exclusivity for the royal court members. In fact, it has become a part of every self-respecting individual's fashion wardrobe, both in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world. Ownership of fine pieces of batik are considered to be prestigious.

Sumber : http://www.iwantirtabatik.com/batik_art_p2.htm