Blue eucalyptus went to Xiangxi Miao Village to play and bought a lot of batik scarves.

Batik is an ancient folk traditional textile printing and dyeing handicraft in China, and it is known as the three major printing techniques in ancient China together with the twisted valerian (tie-dyeing) and the clamping vale (hollow printing).

The invention of batik is based on people's repeated recognition and utilization of material properties, and requires certain environmental factors and technical conditions, so it is produced and developed in specific material conditions and cultural backgrounds.

Batik is based on people's need for clothing beautification, after the progress of human civilization to a certain extent, it is carried out on the basis of a variety of dyeing and weaving processes, so the time of batik should be after the textile, color printing and painting feeding processes are mature.

From the perspective of raw materials, batik has no special requirements for fabrics, and cotton, linen, silk, and wool fabrics can be used; Anti-dyeing materials are not limited to specific varieties, and animal and plant waxes can be used, usually with resin and beeswax; Dyeing can only be done with cold dyeing process, which is generally plant dyeing, mainly indigo.

In terms of scope, batik techniques exist in many parts of the world, and there are various styles and ways of using them. Due to the influence of geography and climate, batik is not suitable for batik in the cold areas of the north, so batik is distributed in tropical and subtropical regions.

Most of the Chinese batik art is concentrated in the areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, so it has unique ethnic characteristics, folk characteristics and regional characteristics.

The areas where these ethnic minorities live are well-natured, with mountains and rivers, which are suitable for the cultivation of indigo and the breeding of bees, which provides the necessary conditions for the creation of batik.

Although Chinese ethnic and folk batik art is concentrated in the ethnic minority areas of southwest China, due to the vast and diverse ethnic groups in southwest China, different forms and styles of batik art have been formed.

Although some ethnic groups live in the same area, their batik styles are the same, and although some are the same ethnic group, their batik styles are very different because they are distributed in different regions that are far apart.

It seems that it is difficult to adopt one method or one classification for the current situation of this diverse batik art, whether it is from different regions or different nationalities.

Therefore, some scholars analyze the characteristics of batik art according to different regions, and some scholars understand the style of batik art according to different ethnic groups.

According to the region, the main concentration of Chinese batik is Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangdong, Taiwan, Jiangxi and other places, according to the ethnic group, Chinese batik is mainly spread and used among ethnic minorities, such as Miao, Buyi, Yao, Shui, Yi, Tu, Bai, etc., according to the dialect, Chinese batik is mainly concentrated in the eastern Guizhou dialect, Guizhou Yunnan dialect, Guizhou western dialect and other regions.

Different ethnic costumes, patterns and different ethnic languages are intrinsically linked, "in the Miao people with different costumes, their language is different, such as the difference in clothing, the difference in language is correspondingly large, the language is the same, the basic style of clothing is also similar."

In terms of style, the style of Chinese batik can be divided into different types and characteristics, such as Danzhai type, Chong'anjiang type, weaving gold type, Rongjiang type, southern Sichuan type, Hainan type, Wenshan type, etc. 2 This style classification is a cross-regional classification method based on art.

Different regions and different nationalities, the same nationality and different regions, their batik is different in use, process, pattern and style. One thing in common is that most of them are concentrated in the border areas of southwest China.

Batik is dipped in wax with a wax knife to melt wax, painted on the cloth and dyed with indigo, and then used boiling water to remove the wax, the cloth will show a variety of patterns of white flowers on a blue background or blue flowers on a white background, and at the same time, in the dipping and dyeing, the wax will naturally crack, so that the cloth surface presents a special "ice pattern", which is particularly charming.

However, with the rapid development of industrial automation, the labor-intensive and time-consuming craft of batik has gradually declined. This trip walked into Guizhou to learn about the handicraft technology that has been inherited for thousands of years.

Miao nationality is one of the only ethnic minorities in China with a population of more than 5 million, and it is also one of the oldest ethnic groups in China.

The Miao people have their own rich and colorful national culture and folk arts and crafts, among which the batik art works have been famous and brilliant in the entire dyeing and weaving industry.

There is a story in the Miao people: there is a smart and beautiful Miao girl who always wants to dye various patterns on her dress. One day, she came to a hundred gardens, where flowers were blooming and butterflies were dancing.

She was so fascinated that she didn't even know that the bees were crawling all over her dress. By the time she found that there were specks of honey and beeswax on her dress. She had to take her dress to the dye bucket and re-dye it, trying to cover the wax stains.

When she took out the dress, a miracle happened: various patterns appeared on the dress, where it had been stained with beeswax! Her heart moved, she found beeswax, drew wax patterns on white cloth with branches, put them in an indigo dye bucket, and finally melted the beeswax with boiling water, and various patterns appeared on the cloth. Since then, batik technology has spread among the Miao people.

In Guizhou, the use of batik is very common for Miao women, such as clothing, skirts, waist girdles and other cotton daily necessities.

This phenomenon is related to the Miao people's admiration of batik, they have many and exquisite batik products for the rich, virtue and beauty, many branches not only in the ancestor worship, weddings, funerals, festivals and other major occasions are decorated with batik, and life is also inseparable from small and delicate batik products.

Many of the white fabrics used for batik are also woven by these Miao women themselves, using the most traditional weaving techniques, which are handmade.

Although these handmade fabrics are superior to machinery in technology, they take too long to make and the economic benefits are not high, so they cannot be accepted by today's young people, and it is very difficult to pass them on.

A wax knife is a homemade steel knife that is often referred to as a wax knife. This type of steel knife is composed of two or more thin pieces of steel of the same shape, one end tied to a wooden handle. The knife edge is slightly open and the middle is slightly empty to make it easy to dip in the wax solution. According to the needs of painting various lines, choose different specifications of wax knives.

Miao women's wax painting, generally do not make proofs, only based on the idea of painting, do not use rulers and compasses, the symmetrical lines, straight lines and square circles drawn, folded up to match the same. The painted flowers, birds, insects and fish are vivid and lifelike.

After the batik is painted, it is put into the dyeing vat for staining, dyed and fished out and boiled with water, and the white pattern appears after the wax melts. But when I saw this dye vat and the grandmother who operated it, I seemed to understand a lot at once.

The hands that have been turning the fabric in the dye vat all year round have been dyed blue by the dye, and the dye has seeped into her skin, and no matter how much you wash it, you can't completely wash it off. With such an operating environment and techniques, it is no wonder that the younger generation who love beauty is reluctant to engage in it.

With the development of social, economic, cultural and educational aspects of Miao Township, especially the influence of the tide of market economy, the traditional handicraft has been greatly impacted, and now the values of the Miao people have also changed.

"One of the prerequisites for the traditional culture of a nation to be passed down from generation to generation is that the traditional culture is passed down from generation to generation in a relatively closed environment." In the past, because the Miao people living in the mountains and valleys knew little about the outside world, their value choice could only be the culture created by their ancestors.

The use of batik in Miao women's clothing is very common, such as clothing, skirts, waist girdles and other cotton daily necessities. This phenomenon is related to the Miao people's admiration of batik, they have many and exquisite batik products for the rich, virtue and beauty, many branches not only in the ancestor worship, weddings, funerals, festivals and other major occasions are decorated with batik, and life is also inseparable from small and delicate batik products.

Many of the white fabrics used for batik are also woven by these Miao women themselves, using the most traditional weaving techniques, which are handmade.

Although these handmade fabrics are superior to machinery in technology, they take too long to make and the economic benefits are not high, so they cannot be accepted by today's young people, and it is very difficult to pass them on.

Miao women's wax painting, generally do not make proofs, only based on the idea of painting, do not use rulers and compasses, the symmetrical lines, straight lines and square circles drawn, folded up to match the same. The painted flowers, birds, insects and fish are vivid and lifelike.

After the batik is painted, it is put into the dyeing vat for staining, dyed and fished out and boiled with water, and the white pattern appears after the wax melts. But when I saw this dye vat and the grandmother who operated it, I seemed to understand a lot at once.

The hands that have been turning the fabric in the dye vat all year round have been dyed blue by the dye, and the dye has seeped into her skin, and no matter how much you wash it, you can't completely wash it off.

The art of batik appeared in China and has a long history. According to the records of Eryi, there was dyed valerian between the Qin and Han dynasties, and it became popular in the Six Dynasties, and the court of the Sui Dynasty was particularly fond of this handicraft, and special patterns appeared.

As for the excavation of the real thing, it is earlier than the documentary record, and there is a quilt surface dyed with the appearance of Valerian in the tomb of the Warring States Period in Changsha, and the pattern is unknown. The Jin Dynasty also had a finished product unearthed, and the pattern was an overlapping spotted flower, which was the so-called agate valerian in the Tang and Song dynasties.

Chinese batik was especially prevalent in the Tang Dynasty, and the technology was much more mature. At that time, batik could be divided into two types: monochrome dyeing and compound dyeing; There are as many as four or five kinds of color dyeing.

Later generations can get a glimpse of the luxurious and beautiful batik patterns of the Tang Dynasty from the clothes of the two women in the picture of Zhang Xuan in the picture of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty and the clothes of several equestrian figures in the picture of the lady of the Kingdom of Qiu.

Due to the great influence of Chinese culture on Japan during the Tang Dynasty, the Shosoin Temple in Nara has preserved a variety of treasures of Chinese crafts since the Tang Dynasty, including a set of wax valerian screens, which were also brought back by monks who went to Tang from Japan during the Tang Dynasty.

Batik began to decline in China since the Song Dynasty, but it became popular in various parts of the South Seas (especially Java, Sumatra and other islands) at the same time, and almost all of Indonesian and Malaysian clothes are made of batik cloth.

Danzhai County, Anshun City and Zhijin County are multi-ethnic areas with the Miao ethnic group as the main body, and the residents here have gradually developed a self-sufficient lifestyle in the harsh environment of long-term isolation from the outside world, so that the ancient batik skills have been preserved.

According to Miao customs, all women are obliged to pass on the art of batik, and every mother must teach her daughter how to make batik. Therefore, Miao women have learned this skill since childhood, planting indigo cotton, spinning and weaving, painting wax and picking shows, dipping and dyeing and tailoring, and passing it on from generation to generation.

Under this situation, these Miao settlements have formed customs and cultures dominated by batik art, such as clothing and decoration, marriage and festival customs, social methods, and funeral customs.

Miao batik is an art created for the needs of the producers, and its products are mainly daily necessities, including women's clothing, bed sheets, quilts, wrapping cloths, headscarves, backpacks, bags, straps, funeral bills, etc.

Generally speaking, the utilization of dyeing materials, the invention and application of dyeing technology, should be earlier than the batik process. That is to say, the production of batik process must go through a long process of understanding and applying dyeing materials.

This indispensable link and process has laid the foundation for the formation of the wax anti-dyeing process. Historically, the Chinese cave people in the Paleolithic period have used mineral pigments for coloring.

According to the Encyclopedia of China, as early as 3000 B.C., China has used plant dyes madder, indigo, woad, safflower, etc. for coloring.

India only used madder and indigo in 2500 BC, 500 years later than China. Egypt used woad and safflower in 2000 BC, 1000 years later than China. It can be seen that the history of textile dyeing in China is extremely long.

Here, we study the germination and development process of Chinese dyeing in order to explore some basic conditions before the emergence of batik.

It is very difficult to explore the origin of batik. The materials on which this research is based are, in addition to written records, more important than the discovery of physical objects.

It is a pity that the most commonly used batik items in ancient life were used by the poor people, and most of the birth, old age, sickness and death of the common people were simple, so the physical excavation of ancient batik is really rare, which is simply incomparable with the most luxurious textiles left behind by the palace nobles after their deaths.

This situation is bound to bring difficulties to the study of Chinese batik of the Zhan Dynasty. So, how do you study this precious legacy? In addition to the written records and unearthed objects, there is also a very important aspect, that is, relying on logical reasoning to make analysis and judgment, so as to study Chinese batik to have a certain degree of convincing.

Although these inferences may not be perfect, they can also provide some exploration and provide an idea for further research. For this reason, it can be considered that from the single mineral pigments used by the cave people at the top of the mountain in Beijing to the rich and diverse dyes later; From the single color painting of the primitive ancestors to the later multi-color dipping, mordant dyeing, over-dyeing, etc., it must have gone through a long and tortuous road.

However, the general trend of its occurrence and development should be: from the use of color materials, the ancients developed from the use of natural color objects (direct use of natural objects with colors) to the processing and use of natural color objects (grinding and mixing of natural objects to form colors), or both at the same time, from the perspective of color decoration objects, the ancients developed from the use of color to color themselves (painting, tattooing) to the use of color to color objects (painted pottery, clothing, etc.), or both at the same time; From the perspective of fabric dyeing technology, the ancients developed from a single hand-painted color on the fabric to a variety of methods to color the fabric (painting, embroidery, printing, anti-dyeing, etc.), or many at the same time.

The above inference can be further confirmed by comparing the written record with the excavated object. According to the research of historians, the understanding and application of colors and dyes by human beings was much earlier than that of textile colors.

Human experience of using color: "Human beings began with coloring themselves (tattoos) – developed into coloring objects. "Archaeological materials have proved that the earliest color known by humans is red, and the cave people in Beijing began to use red mineral pigments 50,000 years ago.

"In the Upper Paleolithic period, the Chinese already knew about dyeing. At the site of the cave on the top of Zhoukoudian in Beijing, hematite (ochre) powder and ornaments such as stone beads and fish bones painted red have been found.

Neolithic painting is more. On the wine vessels from the Hemudu site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province and the painted pottery unearthed from the Banpo site in Xi'an, there are red, white, black, brown, orange and other colors. Most of the pigments used at that time were powders made from ores.

In addition to powdered ochre, cinnabar was found in the Liuwan cemetery in Ledu, Qinghai. Tools such as painting and grinding ore were found at the site of Xiyin Village in Xia County, Shanxi. The powder of these ores was once used for coloring textiles.

During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, dyeing techniques were not only used in clothing, but also widely used mineral dyes (stone dyeing) and vegetable dyes (grass dyeing). Among mineral dyes, cinnabar is the first to be used. Cinnabar is the "Dan" (i.e., mercury oxide) contained in the history books of our country.

The most convincing example is a textile excavated from the Western Zhou tomb in Rujiazhuang, Shaanxi Province, on which the vermilion was dyed with cinnabar. At that time, dyeing techniques were widely used, and there were full-time dyeing officials in the official handicraft workshops to manage dyeing.

In addition, some dye plants are also cultivated, and the more common one is bluegrass (indigo). In "Xia Xiaozheng", there is a record of "May, Qi irrigated indigo". As far as the color varieties are concerned, the "Book of Songs" mentions "green and green, green clothes and yellow", "plain clothes and embroidery", "carrying Xuan and yellow" and so on.

Dyeing tools, according to legend, have dye vats and dye sticks. According to the characteristics of pigments and dyes, adhesives and mordants were used respectively, and the processes of set dyeing, mordant dyeing and "grass and stone dyeing" were established.

Historical facts such as faience painting and fabric dyeing show that there are sufficient conditions for the production of batik. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.