If you think you can only find Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel or the Pendusa God in fairytales and myths, then you’re wrong.
In Indonesia, you can also find them on the traditional batik cloths. Hard to imagine? Maybe.
The batik cloths most of us see today are the ones made recently, when the batik fever began to catch on. But if we went back dozens of years, we would find that classic batik embraced Western influences, like the Brothers Grimm’s folktales and other myths. Not only that, other foreign influences like that of the Japanese culture can also be found, unveiling the rare beauty of Indonesian batik.
These rare and exquisite batik pieces can be found in batik aficionado Tumbu Astiani Ramelan’s collection, which is now being showcased at the Textile Museum in Jakarta, in conjunction with the launch of the collector’s book — The 20th Century Batik Masterpieces.
When examining the 90 batik cloths in the exhibition, we’ll not only be dazzled visually, but also get a better idea of how batik has changed over its long history and how the art form has been influenced by political situations in the country it hails from.
The kompeni — with the afore mentioned Western flavors — for example, brings us back to the early 1900s when Indonesia was under Dutch colonial rule.
“During this period, we could find batik cloths with motifs like guitars and hot air balloons, as well as fairytales and myths, like The Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and [Celtic god] Pendusa,”
explains 70-year-old Tumbu, displaying her collection of motifs made in 1910.
“Some of them were made by Indonesian batik makers based on orders, while the rest were designed by Dutch people themselves, who later became batik designers.”
As the Dutch colonial era came to an end, and Indonesia was ruled by the Japanese for a short period, Tumbu continues, the Jawa Hokokai batik then took the center stage between 1942 and 1945. This batik style brings Japanese flair, taking elements of the kimono and incorporating them into batik designs.
“The Jawa Hokokai batik cloths uses motifs like sakura flowers, as well as broad swath at the foot lining called susimoyo,” says Tumbu, head of Indonesia’s Batik Foundation for Cultural Development. “They have sophisticated designs and they’re very brightly colored,” she adds.
During the same period, Tumbu explains further, the Jawa Hokokai batik was also infused with the pagi-sore (morning and evening) design — a style where the cloth is diagonally divided into two parts, with each of them incorporating different patterns and motifs.
“It was such a very difficult period at that time — people could not afford to buy fabrics, and there weren’t many fabrics available [in Indonesia] either,” Tumbu said.
“Their solution was to have one cloth of batik divided into two designs, so people could use one part [of the cloth] in the morning, and the other in the evening. They would appear to be wearing different pieces in one day, when actually they would be wearing the same cloth.”
After the Japanese left Indonesia, Jawa Hokokai batik took on a new twist — letting go of the susimoyo, adopting more simple motifs and patterns. This new breed of batik was called the Jawa Baru (the new Javanese) batik.
As time went by, batik took on a more serious role within Indonesian society — as a medium of nationalism. It was in 1960, as Tumbu points out, when the persatuan (unity) batik came on to the scene, combining Indonesian elements from across the archipelago on one piece of cloth.
“The persatuan was [former president] Sukarno’s idea, his goal was to spread the spirit the ‘Unitary Republic of Indonesia’ among Indonesians through batik,” says Tumbu, a batik devotee for 40 years.
“This kind of batik brings all motifs that have anything to do with the [national motto] Bhinneka Tunggal Ika [Unity through Diversity]”.
For example, “Just like you can see here, this one has the motifs of traditional houses like rumah gadang [West Sumatra], rumah Bali and other housing styles from across the archipelago,” Tumbu says, showing one of the pieces in her persatuan collection. “Other designs, for instance, also include the motifs of monuments in cities across Indonesia,” she adds.
The richness of batik designs as a reflection of Indonesia’s past political situations, however, is not the only thing to admire from Tumbu’s collections. Religious influence, in this case Islam, on batik became more and more prevalent when exploring the different parts of the exhibition. Looking at one old batik cloth Tumbu calls a kain panjang Rembang (long cloth from Rembang, Central Java) for example, some of us might be surprised to see a cloth with the Arabic symbol of Allah.
“I found this old batik cloth at a flea market in Yogyakarta about 20 years ago, and was astonished with the Allah symbols on it,” Tumbu recalls. “I kept on thinking, why was this cloth made? As you know, a symbol of Allah is considered very sacred, so I couldn’t imagine someone wearing this cloth as the position of the symbol would be on his or her backside”.
Besides the kain panjang Rembang, we can also find other batik cloths embellished with Arabic calligraphy, like those from Sumatra’s Jambi, Palembang and Bengkulu.
“Although these batik cloths are called as Bengkulu batik, for example, most of them were actually made in Java,” Tumbu says. “This kind of batik, with a strong Arabic influence, originates from places like Cirebon, Indramayu and Pekalongan,” she adds.
Tumbu’s collection also features a kain Tok Wie, or the batik cloth for the Buddhist altar.
“Because it’s for the Chinese rituals, it also embraces Chinese motifs like dragons,” she says.
With batik designs having evolved over time, and acting as a repositry for Indonesia’s rich history, documenting batik is one way preserve these precious textiles, Tumbu notes. And documenting rich and unique motifs as well as patterns of her batik collections in a book, is what she did after years of witnessing foreign collectors take more and more of Indonesia’s old batiks cloths out of the country.
“That’s why I decided to document some of my collection in this book,” she says.
Besides aiming to preserve batik, she goes on, “I also hope today’s batik makers and designers can get some inspiration from the old batik motifs and revive them [through their creations]”.
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