Introduction to Ancient Chinese Fabrics

Batik, together with tie-dye, blue print and clip-dye, is known as the four major printing and dyeing techniques in ancient China, with a history of more than 2,000 years. In ancient times, it was called "Wax Val" and "Wax Defense". As early as in the Qin and Han Dynasties more than 2,000 years ago, folk began to use beeswax as anti-dyeing materials, using special wax knives or pens, dipped in warmed and melted wax (made of beeswax and paraffin wax), depicting patterns on cotton cloth, then dipped into an indigo tank for dyeing, dyeing the non-waxed portion of the cloth blue, and then into the boiling water, after oxidation and refining and then stripped of the wax, which reveals a blue and white pattern. After the Song Dynasty, the batik craft gradually declined in the central plains of China, while in the southwest, the traditional batik is still penetrating into the daily life of the people in the minority areas in the south-central China, and batik is their necessity of life, which has been passed down from generation to generation, and has been praised as quot;cultural relics that do not have to be unearthedquot;".

Guizhou minority areas are the traditional production areas of batik, Anshun, Kaili, Danzhai, Huangping, Leishan area are famous for batik. Deep in the mountains, Miao women arbitrarily depict everything they can see in nature, flowers, grasses, fruits or birds, insects and fish, exaggerated gestures, bold deformation, free and casual depictions or regular and strict geometric patterns, the rhyming wax lines produced by drawing with copper pens, all of which show a mysterious, spiritual, lively and romantic beauty, full of the vitality of life's breath of life, and contains the connotation of ancient culture, which has formed a unique style of batik. It forms the unique style of batik.

According to historical records, Guizhou batik has been started from Han Dynasty, and has a history of more than 2,000 years since then. Batik patterns first originated from copying patterns on copper drums, and the method used at that time was to mask the cloth on the surface of copper drums, rubbing it back and forth with wax, and after dyeing, the patterns on the copper drums were moved to the cloth, which is similar to the method of making topiaries. Later, people invented the copper wax knife, dipped in melted wax liquid, can easily draw directly on the cloth as they wish. This method turned batik from copying into creation, got rid of the constraints of copper drum patterns, favored the formation of batik's own unique artistic style, gave full play to the performance of batik tools, and embodied the beauty of batik's materials.

Guizhou batik is most often made of home-made cloth, which is thick, durable and has a unique texture effect. However, before painting the wax, it must also be boiled with grass ash or cow dung for two or three hours for bleaching, drying, sizing and grinding the cloth and drying the process, in order to fully express the charm of the batik process.

The waxes used for batik production are mainly beeswax, white wax and wood wax. Even maple sap, etc. can be used as anti-dyeing material after boiling at high temperature, and usually beeswax and white wax are mostly mixed. Maple is the symbol and incarnation of the ancestors of the Miao people, and is the sacred tree worshipped by the Miao people. The sap of the maple tree is reddish in color, and the Hmong believe that it is the blood of their ancestors, which has the power of God, and so they use it to depict the image of their totems and objects of worship. Later, people found that the beautiful maple sap from the maple tree also contains gums and sugar and has the role of anti-dyeing, generally and buffalo oil heated and stirred to draw, dyeing patterns brighter. So it is a hundred years of maple sap in white cloth painting, and then after dyeing, rinsing, made of ceremonial clothing and flags, and from the ceremonial supplies popularized to daily necessities, which is the folk tradition of "maple dyeing".

Ancient dyes, mainly natural dyes, are divided into vegetable dyes, animal dyes and mineral pigments. From the discovery of ancient textiles and literature, the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, mainly using mineral pigments, then more than the use of ore research into powder and become, this kind of color collectively referred to as mineral color. At the same time, from Xia Dynasty to the Warring States period not only developed various mineral dyes, but also began to use plant dyes, and there are a small amount of dyes from animal blood in individual areas. After the Han, mineral pigments have been used less, the plant is increasingly popular, and by the original use of polygonum blue fresh leaf dip dyeing, improved to polygonum blue leaves completely soaked with water and then add lime in proportion to the indigo made of indigo and then dyeing. Red dye with cress, safflower, sumac, blue with polygonum, wood blue, yellow with sumac, gardenia, acacia, tulip and so on. These commonly used plant dyes developed into the Tang Dynasty, it became a relatively fixed dye for printing.

Guizhou qiandong area of the Miao, since ancient times, the common use of polygonum blue to do batik main dyeing material. Other vegetable dyes and mineral dyes (cinnabar) are used for painting or brush painting. Indigo dyeing is stable and not easy to fade, and a piece of batik clothing can often be worn for more than ten years or even longer. Villagers will harvest the stems and leaves of the bluegrass into the pool, tank, barrel or pit, and then on top of the heavy stones, plus cold water soak 6-7 days, every two days to turn a little, to be completely soaked and fermented, the surface of the water floated purplish-red bubbles, the indigo leaf residue fished out. Then deepen the lime according to a certain proportion and pour it into the tank, (about 5kg indigo leaves with 1kg lime) and stir it with a ladle or bamboo pole for 1-2 hours. After overnight, the indigo coagulates and precipitates, and the water on top is poured off to become indigo paste (commonly known as "dry indigo"). But in order to dye, you have to add water to the indigo pulp and other dye-promoting agents such as grass ash water and bract wine to make it together, and the dyeing solution is considered to be ready.

Dyeing in the tank is a very important part. In the process of dyeing, the white cloth is first put into warm water (about 20 degrees Celsius) and soaked for a few hours, and then put into the dyeing tank for dyeing. In addition, during the dyeing process, the cloth is repeatedly sized 1-2 times with soybean water, red root water, earth wine and cow glue to increase the adhesion of the dye. The more times you dip, the darker the color. This is repeated for three to five days to confirm that the fabric has been dyed until it is ready.

After the wax cloth dyeing is completed, you need to add the right amount of water to boil in an iron pot, and then put a little salt into the fabric into the boiling water for high temperature dewaxing treatment, to remove the leftover wax on the surface of the fabric and floating color. Finally, take out the wax cloth in the water repeatedly rinsed, so that the residual wax and floating color and fabric completely separated, and then dried, and then processed into real products according to need.