Although the tjanting is the more desired and versatile device for applying wax, the men wax batiks with “tjaps.” The tjap is a wooden block with designs of metal insert. The craftsman sits on a low stool in front of an inclined table over which the goods are smoothly spread. The bottom of a shallow pan is covered with wax, heated in the same manner [!-- original location of illustration --] as for the tjanting. An absorbent pad is placed in the pan, the tjap is pressed on the pad and imprinted on the fabric. The fabric is then turned and, with another tjap made like the first except with its symmetry reversed, wax imprints are made in exactly the same places. This insures good waxing on both sides of the fabric. The piece is then ready for the dye.
JAVANESE BATIK TOOLS
Sometimes a set of many tjaps is used to work out a pattern for a sarong or other garment. The making of these tjaps is the laborious and expensive work of experts. Of course we may expect to find many repetitions of such patterns, differing from one another only in the accidents of dyeing.
Frequently different methods of applying wax are used in the same decoration. Freehand work with the tjanting and brush on fine pieces serve to take away from the mechanical reproduction of tjap designs. The decoration of the [end papers] of this book, taken from a fine old sarong, affords an interesting study.
The most artistic and highly regarded effects in batiks among the Japanese workers are executed as they are in America today, i.e., the wax is applied with a brush and is as free from mechanical aids as painting.
Pieter Mijer, in “Batiks and How to Make Them,” published by Dodd Mead & Company, New York, writes of the modern development of batiks in Holland. The artists who have stimulated the present interest are Cris Lebeau, Dijesselhof and Lion Cachet. The illustrations of their work have a charm and individuality worthy of the highest respect. The author’s own piece shown in the same group does not lose by comparison.
This book is also rich in valuable instruction and other illustrations of batiks, showing high American standards of the craft.
Batik adaptation in America is without tradition, and is an outgrowth of youth and enthusiasm caught up and carried on the high tide of progress and opportunity. The real significance of its popularity reaches backward into the necessity that confronted workers in textile designing after Europe was caught in the maelstrom of war.