An example of Chris Lebeau's design. He produced some of the most striking and complex designs in batik and was successful in assimilating traditional patterns and colors of the East Indies into his own work.
Lebeau's book design
What is batik?
Of Javanese origin, amba ('to write') and titik ('dot' or 'point'), also 'to tattoo' from the use of a needle in the process. The word is first recorded in English in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1880, in which it is spelled battik.
Lebeau's wall paper (circa 1920s)
what do we see here?
1- a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax-resist dyeing technique.
2- Javanese traditional batik has meanings rooted to the Javanese conceptualization of the universe.
3- Traditional colours include indigo, dark brown, and white, which represent the three major Hindu Gods (Brahmā, Vishnu, and Śiva).
4- This is related to the fact that natural dyes are most commonly available in indigo and brown. Certain patterns can only be worn by nobility; traditionally, wider stripes or wavy lines of greater width indicated higher rank.