Batik Art in Southwest Minority Areas

Batik is an ancient anti-staining process. The anti-dye agent is mainly yellow wax (ie, beeswax) and is sometimes blended with white wax. The art of batik was handed down from generation to generation in the ethnic minority areas of the southwest and formed a unique national art style. It is a flower of China's unique ethnic art.

First, batik and batik art:

Batik is an ancient anti-dyeing process. It was called "wax" in ancient times. Together with twisting and clinching, it is called the three basic types of ancient dyeing techniques in China. In addition to the exquisite designs, the charm of batik crafts lies in the fact that after the wax cools, cracks form on the fabric, and the pigment penetrates into the cracks, resulting in a variety of color patterns, commonly known as “ice patterns”. The same pattern design, made into batik can get different "ice patterns."

The batik process has inherited and developed traditional batik techniques in ethnic minority areas in Southwest China, especially in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in Guizhou, and it has become widely popular. It has become an indispensable art in the lives of minority women. The ethnic minorities here are mainly decorated with batik as Huangping, Chonganjiang and Miao women in Danzhai County. Their turbans, aprons, clothes, skirts and leggings are all made of batik. Others include umbrella covers, pillow covers, and rice. Batik is used in baskets, bags, schoolbags, and straps; the Miao women in Anshun and Puding decorate the sleeves, clothes, and the edges of the clothes with batik patterns. They wear their children's batik straps and are dyed delicately and delicately. In addition to the blue and white two-color, some also added red, yellow, green and other colors to become bright and colorful multi-colored batik. The batiks of ethnic minorities in Guizhou each have their own characteristics. For example, some of the Hmong batik patterns still use ancient copper drum patterns and folklore motifs, and some are flowers, birds, insects and fish that come into contact with daily life; while the Buyi people prefer to use them. Geometric patterns. The ethnic batiks have a unique style.

The art of batik was handed down from generation to generation in ethnic minority areas. After a long history of development, it has accumulated rich creative experience and formed a unique national art style. It is a flower of China's extremely characteristic national art.

Second, the type of batik:

The current batik can be broadly divided into three categories: - Ethnic minority areas in the southwest, where folk artists and rural women self-support batik products for personal use. Such products should belong to folk arts and crafts. Another category is the batik products produced by factories and workshops for the market. This type of products should belong to arts and crafts. The third type is a purely ornamental art made by the artist as the center, that is, the "Batik painting." The three major types of batik coexist at the same time, affect each other and compete. This complex and diversified phenomenon is rare in the art world.

Third, the batik production process:

The ancient batik craft was preserved in Guizhou’s ethnic minority areas and has been spread to the present, and it has created a variety of batik patterns. In Huangping, Danzhai, Zhenning and other minority areas in Guizhou Province, ethnic women of ethnic origin are experts in spotting wax. Wax flowers are their indispensable decorations.

Let us first talk about the material of Guizhou batik: The batik fabrics are usually made from white folk fabrics, but there are also woven white fabrics, cotton fabrics, and poplins. Anti-dye agents are mainly yellow wax (ie, beeswax) and are sometimes blended with white wax. Beeswax is the secretion of wax glands from the belly of honeybees. It is insoluble in water but can be melted after warming. It is to use this feature as a preservative for batik. The dye used was a blue dragonfly produced in Guizhou. Guizhou is rich in bluegrass, which is a plant of the family Polygonaceae. Its stems are about two or three feet tall. It blooms in July and is harvested in August. Bluegrass leaves in the pits and fermented into blue pods. On the rural market in Guizhou, there are blue and white dyestuff dyeing workshops, but there are also blue toads that are bought and dyed in dye tanks.

Batik cloth is made by coating wax, drawing, dyeing, dewaxing, and rinsing on cloth. Because in the process of dyeing, the surface of the wax white cloth will produce natural cracks, which will infiltrate the white fabric into the dye and cause coloration. Many or coarse or irregular color patterns are also called moire. These are the differences between The standard of imitation batik is because any “rapples” designed into imitation batik fabrics are regularly found. However, real batik fabrics are often difficult to find and cannot find exactly the same moire pattern.

The tool for drawing wax is not a brush, but a homemade steel knife. Because it is easy to cool and solidify with a brush, the steel drawing knife is easy to keep warm. This kind of steel knife is made up of two or more thin copper sheets of the same shape with one end attached to a wooden handle. The blade is slightly open and the middle is slightly empty to facilitate storage of beeswax. According to the needs of drawing various lines, there are copper knives of different specifications, generally semicircular, triangular, axe, etc.

Batik production methods and processes: the white cloth posts on the board or desktop wax. The method of spotting the wax is to put the beeswax in a ceramic bowl or a metal jar. The charcoal ash or oyster shell fire in the brazier melts the wax and the copper knife can be used to paint the wax.

The first step in painting is business location. In some areas, large outlines are defined according to the pattern of paper cuts, and then various patterns are drawn. In other areas, without using any tricks, only nails can be used to outline large outlines on the white cloth, so that beautiful patterns can be drawn with ease. In the dyeing method, the painted wax is placed in a vat of blue dye, generally each Soak for five or six days. After the first soak, it was air-dried and light blue. Soak it several times and get dark blue. If it is necessary to have a pattern of shades on the same fabric, after the first soaking, the wax pattern will be painted on the light blue. After dyeing, two patterns of depth and depth appear. When the wax piece is placed in the dyeing tank, some “wax seals” are cracked due to folding, and thus natural cracks are generated, which are generally called “ice patterns”. Sometimes "ice patterns" are also made as needed. This "ice pattern" tends to make the batik pattern more abundant and has a natural and chic flavor.

Guizhou batik is generally blue and white. There are two ways to make colored batik: one is to draw a colorful pattern on a white cloth first, then “wax seal up” it, and then dip it to reveal a color pattern; the other method is to bleach and dry it according to the method of general batik. After drying, fill in the white place again. The colored dyes used in folk batik are dyed red with bayberry juice and yellow in gardenia.

There should also be mentioned a craft called "wax". In some ethnic areas, unspoiled wax flowers are used as ornaments. They decorated this "wax" on their heads or clothes. This craft is a white and tan pattern, color harmony, unique. The disadvantage of "wax" is that the wax is easy to fall off, so it can only be used locally on clothing.

The vast majority of processes in batik production are manual operations. So far, it has not been replaced by mechanization or automation. The facts show that it is impractical to develop batik art using the production methods of modern big industry. Batik factories have advantages in producing large quantities of batik fabrics. As a batik for folk arts and crafts, it is often the case that only a few drawings are wall-mounted, or even only one wall-hanging. In the world, the “art of batik art” is rising, and the demand for domestic and international art markets is very large.