Indonesian Batik, the Masterpiece of Human Heritage

Indonesia should be proud of its cultural heritage as some of them have been recognized by UNESCO as the masterpiece of human heritage. Among those intangible heritages are traditional puppets (2003), "Kris" ceremonial knives (2005), traditional "batiks" (2009) and "angklung" bamboo musical instrument (2010). Now Indonesia has registered another three of its cultural heritage, namely Balinese traditional dance, Noken  Papuan handicraft and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII).

The foreigners who come for the first time to visit Jakarta may see the unusual sight of people wearing a colorful shirt. What they are wondering of is batik, a piece of cloth painted with various kinds of the composition of pictures or diagrams. It is a creative art design on a piece of cloth hand-drawn using a liquid candle as the media, to colorize the cloth surface area which is not covered by the liquid candle. The drawings with the liquid candle are done several times until you get the color combination as you wish.  UNESCO has recognized batik as the masterpiece of intangible heritage of humanity on October 2, 2009, following its far and wide fame.

In olden days, batik was worn by people living in Java. The people wore batik as early as the beginning of the 13^th century.  Up to the 18^th century, batik designs and productions were centered inside the kings’ palaces. At those days, before the liquid candle from oil product was available, people used the bee candle to draw the design. The colors were extracted from various plants and minerals.

At those days, both men and women wore batik as a sarong. The men used to wear batik sarong with a traditional dagger (kris) put at the waist. Batik was produced in such a way that its products were due to certain groups in social classes. There were batiks sarongs designed and produced for high class only. For a kind of batik with certain motifs, only the king and his families were allowed to wear it. Nowadays, we can still see the way of such wearing in the wedding ceremony where the bride and their parents wear such clothes imitating old style high-class wedding ceremony. 

In all, there are around 600 kinds of batik motifs in Indonesia. The cloth can undergo its sales in the form of a piece of clothes, trousers, or a sarong usually worn by women. The picture stands for good fate, high rankings of certain classes in the society or story in the past. Sometimes it resembles abstract paintings which need analysis to reveal its meaning.  The philosophy behind the drawing of a particular batik motif is related to the more subtle social background which needs insight and comprehensive explanation. 

Large scale batik production began only in 1920 when batik centers introduced textile printing machines. Most of its products were then uniforms and their artistic beauty faded away. As such the price became cheaper and common people could easily afford to buy batik products. 

Up to 1960s, batik was used only for sarongs and never for shirts. We are indebted to Ali Sadikin, the then governor of Jakarta, who encouraged the Jakarta citizens to proudly wear batik shirts as national identity. The campaign also accelerated the “swasembada” (national self-supporting) movement through the preference of using national products. 

The areas of batik groceries in Jakarta are mainly in Tanah Abang, from which all batik products are distributed to all over the country. As raw materials for batik are also sold there, some traders from Central Java moved to Jakarta producing their own batik. They brought workers from their home town causing in certain degree urbanization to Jakarta. 

With the aim to collect all kinds of batik designs from all over Indonesia, the Indonesian Batik Foundation (YBI) constructed a batik gallery inside the Indonesian Textile Museum. However, since the show-room allocated for batik is too small, not all batik designs are displayed at one moment. On every three-month period, the content of the gallery is replaced with the new ones. 

We expect that the city government is serious about their plan to construct a new Batik Museum by 2014 and allocate enough budgets for it. The realization of this museum would become a gesture of our appreciation toward batik’s international recognition not only as national heritage but also as the masterpiece of the whole humanity as it has been recognized by  UNESCO in 2009.