Understand the traditional printing and dyeing process

Batik is an ancient traditional textile printing and dyeing handicraft in China. Batik, called wax in ancient times, and tie-dyeing and hollowing printing are also called the three major printing technologies in ancient China. Batik is to draw flowers on the cloth with a wax knife dipped in melted wax, and then dipped in indigo. When the wax is removed, the surface of the cloth presents various patterns of white flowers on a blue background or blue flowers on a white background. At the same time, in the dip dyeing, the wax as a resist naturally cracks, which makes the cloth surface show a special "ice grain", which is particularly eye-catching. Because batik is rich in patterns, elegant in color and unique in style, it is simple and elegant, fresh and pleasing to the eye, and full of national characteristics when used to make clothes and various practical articles for life.

As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty (BC 1 1 century-BC 77 1 year), China's dyeing and weaving technology had developed greatly. According to the Book of Rites and other documents, at that time, there were special officials in charge of silk and dyeing and weaving, and Chu also had a "Lanyin" worker who presided over the production of indigo. It shows that the silk weaving and dyeing process at that time was quite large. Batik, which was called wax valerian in ancient times, used wax to draw patterns on linen, silk, cotton, wool and other fabrics, and then put them into a dyeing vat for dip dyeing. If there is wax, you can't dye it. If you remove wax, beautiful patterns will appear. This is an ancient anti-dyeing process in China with a long history.

Batik cultural relics discovered in ancient China include the Northern Dynasty blue wax wool fabric unearthed in Wu Yutian, Xinjiang (AD 396-58 1), the Xiliang blue wax cotton cloth unearthed in the northern tomb of Astana, Turpan, Xinjiang (AD 400-42 1), and the Tang Dynasty blue wax silk (AD 6 18-907) under the first cave mural. The background colors of wax silk and wax yarn in Tang Dynasty are brown, yellow and ochre, and most of them are white patterns.

Batik technology has been passed down from generation to generation in ethnic minority areas in southwest China, especially in Guizhou. It inherits and develops the traditional batik technology and becomes an indispensable art in the life of minority women. Miao women in Ping Huang, Chong 'anjiang and Danzhai are mainly decorated with batiks. Their headscarves, vests, clothes, skirts, leggings and leggings are all batik, and others such as umbrella covers, pillow towels, rice baskets, bags and straps are also batik. Miao women in Anshun and Puding decorate the edges of sleeves, skirts and clothes with batik patterns. They carry their children's batiks on their backs, and they dot-dye them exquisitely. Besides blue and white, some of them are dyed with red, yellow and green, which makes them colorful.

Batik of Guizhou ethnic groups has its own characteristics. For example, the batiks of Miao people still follow the patterns of ancient bronze drums and the themes in folklore, and some are flowers, birds, insects and fish that they come into contact with in daily life. Buyi people, on the other hand, like geometric patterns. Batik of all ethnic groups has a unique style.

Tie-dyeing is an ancient textile dyeing process in China. Dali calls it a pimple cloth and a pimple flower. Its processing technology is to fold and bind the fabric, or sew and bind it, and then immerse it in color paste for dyeing. Dyeing is made of natural plants such as Radix Isatidis, which is harmless to human skin. Various tie-dyeing methods combined with the use of various dyeing methods make the dyed patterns varied and have amazing artistic charm. Tie-dyeing has a history of about 1500 years in China. The earliest existing physical object is the twisted valerian printed silk in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Tie-dyeing reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, and it became fashionable for nobles to wear twist clothes. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the tie-dyeing process was once banned by the imperial court because of its complicated process and labor consumption, which led to the decline or even disappearance of the tie-dyeing process. However, the ethnic minorities in the southwest border still retain this ancient skill. Besides China, Indian, Japanese, Cambodian, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian and other countries also have tie-dyed handicrafts. In 1970s, tie-dyeing became a popular handicraft, which was widely used in clothes, ties and wall hanging. Traditional tie-dyeing process can develop from monochrome to multicolor effect by using multiple tie-dyeing processes on the same fabric.