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Batik is generally thought of as the most quintessentially Indonesian textile. Motifs of flowers, twinning plants, leaves buds, flowers, birds, butterflies, fish, insects and geometric forms are rich in symbolic association and variety; there are about three thousand recorded batik patterns.
The very act of creating batik has strong symbolic meaning for the Javanese. According to the Indonesian tradition, each time the batik artisan executes a particular intricate pattern, the design is not only fixed to the cloth, but the meaning of the design is engraved ever more deeply in the soul of the artisan.
In the Kraton, or Javanese court, batik was one of the six priyayi, "high arts" studied by the cultured Javanese gentry. Batik, along with music and dance, was considered to be a way to develop spiritual discipline.
The essence of the batik process is to produce a design on textiles through the use of a dye-resist. The resist, usually wax (but other materials such as rice paste are also employed), prevents the dye from penetrating the covered areas of the fabric, thus creating a pattern in negative.
Additional wax is added to embellish the design or preserve areas in the color of the initial dye bath. The cloth is then dipped in a second dye bath. This process is repeated a number of times depending on the number of dyes involved. Producing a high quality piece of batik fabric is time consuming and requires a high degree of skill.
Batik workers sit on low stools with the cloth they are working on draped over a bamboo frame called gawanagan. Next to them is a simple kerosene stove with a small iron wok called wajan, which is filled with molten wax.
The main elements of the design are usually penciled onto the fabric, but many of the details are added freehand. Very experienced artisans can wax designs, using a tjanting (pronounced "canting") directly to the cloth from memory.
