Batik Through The Globe: India

India and its soul, has always lay within colors. The beauty of India is in the million different beautiful rangs found in every aspect of their life. In imagining India most people imagine a land of beautiful textiles, colorful temples, Holi and a multicultural nation with an identity immersed in beautiful history. This romantic fantasy of a prismatic India is based on the reality of Indian textiles. In the 7th century India travelled and with its travels it brought its textiles to the Asian continent. It is believed that the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago discovered block printed and ikat-decorated textiles from Gujarat and the cloths with hand drawn motifs. These beautiful materials are known to be the Kalamkari.

The Intricate Kalamkari.

Kalamkari, otherwise known as pencraft; Is an art that involves a vigorous process of resist-dyeing and hand block printing as well as painting. The antiquity of the Kalamkari’s naturally dyed fabrics predates the pre-Christian era. The samples of these materials have been unearthed in several excavations across the world such as Cairo, Greece, Central Asia and Arabia which lends to the belief of international trade. In his work Arts & Crafts Percy Brown mentions the Kalmakari art was practiced in the 18th century all along the Coromandal Coast.

In Kalamkari itself there are two main styles, the Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam (Masulipatnam) styles both centred in Andra Pradesh.

The Srikalahasti.

The craftsmen of the Srikalahasti from the temple town in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh still utilize the ancient techniques of dyeing inherited from their ancestors. Their most famous work are the free hand wall drawings with Hindu mythology as the main source of the themes. Some of the Srikalahasti craftsmen also produce beautiful materials drawn purely of their memory and imagination.

Photo By: Yamini Vasudevan

Their work is enhanced by elaborate decorations with the use of beaded lines and the use of heart shaped designs on the borders. The artisans simplify the colors by eliminating the shading and adding rounded faces, long and big eyes for dramatic effect and use primarily dominating colors such as yellow, blue, red and black.

Photo By: Megha Sharma

In certain cases, the outlines and the main features are made using hand carved blocks and the more intricate details are later added with a pen. Only natural dyes are used for the kalamkari and the colours are obtained from plants. For example, red colour is obtained from Indian madder, yellow from myrobalan flower, blue from indigo plant and black from iron filings and sugar molasses.

The Machilipatnam.

Due to the Muslim rule in Golconda, the Machilipatnam kalamkari had a heavy influence of Persian designs and motifs that were created to suit their taste. Similar to the Srikalahasti the outlines and main features are done using hand carved blocks and the finer details are added later on with the pen.

During the British rule, floral designs were extremely popular and the artisans even painted portraits of the Englishmen. During the Maratha rule in the Thanjavur region, the royal family during the period of Raja Sarfoil and Raja Sivaji, kalamkari work was further embellished with the gold brocade work in the woven fabric of the sarees and dhotis.

The kalamkari technique first requires the cloth and colors to be decided. The cloth is bleached with goat or cow dung and then treated with myrobalan and milk solution to avoid the color spreading. The painting is done using iron acetate resist for solid spaces or outlines and alum is used as mordant. Wax resist is used for dyeing the cloth in different colors.

Tie & Dye.

As Indian textiles made their inroad into South East Asia, and the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago discovered block printed, as well as ikat-decorated textiles from Gujarat and cloths with hand-drawn motifs (kalamkari) from the Coromandel coast. The Indian ikats (patola) took prime position amongst these and very quickly became sacred objects used in various rituals. They were treated as heirlooms, and it is thanks to this custom that some of the oldest Indian patolas have survived. Throughout Javanese textile history producers have tried to imitate Indian patolas. Even batik patterns are said to be strongly influenced by these "ikat" cloths.

Tie and dye is one of the most widely practiced and traditional methods of textile surface decoration in India, though it goes by different names in different regions—bandhini is Rajasthan, bandhej in Guajarat, chungidi in Tamil Nadu. Ikat is a style of weaving with yarn that is tied and dyed to produce colored patterns, and is practised in Guajarat, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

While it is widely believed that the practice of tie and dye originated in Rajasthan, yet others believe that it was brought from the Sindh into Kachchh (Gujarat) by the Muslim Khatris. The earliest reference to bandhini is considered to be in Bana Bhatta’s Harshacharita, where a royal wedding is described.

Left: Tie Dyed Knots, Right: An example of Bandhini, Photo By: Marilyn Murphy

A bandhini garment is considered auspicious for the bride. One also finds the maids in the Ajanta wall paintings wearing apparel of tie-and-dye patterns. The most exquisite bandhini work of Rajasthan comes from Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Barmer, Pali, Udaipur and Nathdwara. Rajasthan is well known for its leheriya pattern—literally meaning waves. These are harmoniously arranged diagonal stripes of two alternating colors, though originally only the auspicious colors of yellow and red were used. The centers of tie-and-dye fabrics in Gujarat (where the style is called bandhej) are Jamnagar (the water in this area brings out the brightest red while dyeing), and Ahmedabad. The process of tie-and-dye varies in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Even the patterns, designs and craftsmanship vary in both the places. However, there are common factors. The process involves bleaching a piece of cloth first. The cloth may be muslin, silk or handloom. The pattern is then marked on the cloth by wooden blocks dipped in a burnt sienna color mixed with water. Then the specialists in tying knots go into action, pinching and tying the dots created by the artist.

The Process Of Tie Dye.

There may be thousands or millions of knots tied in the fabric before it goes for dyeing. The dyeing specialist takes over next, dipping the fabric into selected dyes made from vegetable sources, though now synthetic dyes are also used. The process is repeated for each color. The lightest shade is dyed first and then tied up tightly with threads, and successive processes take care of the darker hues.

Colors and patterns are the two most important factors that make a bandhej or bandhini work stand out. The various traditional patterns involved in this printing technique are barah baag, bavan baag, chokidal, ambadal, and kambaliya. The pattern of squares with elephants and other animals is known as chokidal. The kambaliya pattern is a dotted pattern in the center with different designs along the border. Meant especially for the brides are two designs called shikhara and chandokhni. Basant bahar is a special design to symbolise the colors of spring. The colors commonly used in the traditional tie-and dye bandhini fabrics are red, a symbol of marriage; saffron, a color denoting spirituality or holiness, yellow, which stands for spring; and black and maroon, used for mourning.

Bandhini material is usually sold folded and with the knots tied to indicate that it is actually tie-and-dye material and it has not been merely printed in that design. In Tamil Nadu, the method of tie and dye is locally known as chungidi, and Madurai is the key centre. Traditionally, the colors used are a dark red (maroon), purple, and blue and black, though now many other shades are also used. The speciality here is the kolam or rangoli patterns. The kolams are all geometric in nature and the borders of the saree are in contrasting colors and may have zari designs.

Batik.

Indian batik is estimated to go back to almost 2000 years ago. Indians knew the resist method of printing designs on cotton fabrics long before any other country had even tried it. However, the art declined. In modern times, it received an impetus when it was introduced as a subject at Shantiniketan near Kolkata, and began to be practized in the Cholamandal Artists’ Village near Chennai.

Batik is a process of decorating cloth by covering a part of it with a coat of wax and then dyeing the cloth so that the waxed areas keep their original color, and when the wax is removed, the contrast between the dyed and the other areas gives the pattern. The creation of batik is a three-stage process of waxing, dyeing and removing the wax.

There are also several sub-processes like preparing the cloth, tracing the designs, stretching the cloth on the frame, waxing the area of the cloth that does not need dyeing, preparing the dye, dipping the cloth in dye, boiling the cloth to remove wax and washing the cloth in soap.

The characteristic effects of the batik are the fine cracks that appear in the wax, which allow small amounts of the dye to seep in. It is a feature not possible in any other form of printing.

However, the right type of cracks or hairline detail need to be achieved, for which the cloth must be crumpled correctly. This requires a lot of practice and patience. Batik is created in several ways. In splash method the wax is splashed or poured onto the cloth. The screen- printing method involves a stencil. The hand painting one is by a kalamkari pen. The scratch and starch resist are the other methods.