and floral sinuous flowering trees in each corner, also appears to have been influenced by a type of painted Indian cotton chintz, which was imported into Southeast Asia for centuries (Maxwell, 1990). The unique Javanese waxing pen (canting) was used to execute the hand-drawn batik.
bi ceremonial hanging Acehnese people, Sumatra, Indonesia cotton, wool, silk, gold thread, sequins, glass beads appliqué, couching, embroidery, lace 64.0 x 208.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.1986
This long red embroidered panel (bi) was hung around the bed or throne (pelaminan) at celebrations of weddings or circumcisions in the Acehnese and Malay communities of coastal Sumatra. Among the floral and foliated couched gold thread patterns, other realistic motifs appear. The mythical bouraq (burak), Muhammad's mount for his visit to Heaven, is shown with a female head and the winged body of a horse. Under one burak, a swastika of Buddhist origins can be seen. The embroidered Malay inscription in Kufic script on the creature's flanks, though missing some sequins, seems to wish those who marry happiness (menikah) and good fortune (selamat). The motifs are presented in the formal symmetrical style popular on Islamic textiles such as Mughal hangings and Central Asian carpets, although the structure of these panels is also similar to certain Chinese ceremonial hangings found throughout Southeast Asia. Early twentieth century
kain sarong woman's skirt Eliza van Zuylen (1863-1947), Pekalongan, Java, Indonesia cotton, natural dyes batik 106.0 x 200.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.3170
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the immigrant and mestizo European and Chinese women living in Indonesia began to wear cylindrical batik cotton skirts. They added their own preferred motifs to the multitude of existing batik designs. Bird motifs such as the swallow and swan appeared amid bouquets of European flowers, particularly on the contrasting head-panels. Even the lotus is depicted in European naturalistic style typical of these designs. This batik with the studio mark of the famous atelier, E. van Zuylen, a workshop that operated from 1890 to 1946 (de Raadt-Apell, 1980: 13), still uses the traditional north-coast Javanese red and blue dyes against a white ground.
The form and the intensity of each foreign cultural influence changed with time. The art of India under Mughal rule was not the same art that inspired the great Hindu-Buddhist temples of Southeast Asia; Chinese culture in the eighth century was very different from the late nineteenth century; the Spanish in the fifteenth century presented a different image of European culture from the Dutch in the early twentieth century; Islam in India is not the same as in the Arab world. Moreover, the Great Traditions of Asia and Europe were transformed into Lesser Traditions with trade and distance. The Chinese peasant fleeing his homeland, the Gujarati merchant-pedlar, the Dutch colonial soldier and the Islamic teacher-traveller did not represent the great artistic centres or courts of their cultures. The objects and impressions that reached Southeast Asia were unlikely to have been the finest that the East and West could produce. In fact, historians cannot agree about what Southeast Asians really saw of the arts of the Great Traditions of India and China and there is much debate about the actual means by which new philosophies, religions and arts were transmitted to the distant lands of Southeast Asia.
Since traditional textile production in Southeast Asia was exclusively the task of women, textiles are able to show history from a different perspective by reflecting a female view of the contact between different cultures and are an alternative to the princely epics of war, succession and dominance. Textiles also remind us that many cultures and traditions existed outside the powerful court centres and kingdoms that dominate most accounts of Southeast Asian history. Many of the fabrics illustrated here - particularly the warp-decorated vegetable fibre textiles - provide valuable information about life in some of the more isolated and remote locations in Southeast Asia not directly in contact with the centres of international power and trade.
Perhaps the most difficult influences to assess are those of any one Southeast Asian culture upon its neighbours. Interregional influences have existed since prehistoric times, and while changes in textile design have often resulted from the political hegemony of a particular group during certain periods, most have been subtly absorbed and have passed undocumented. However, the important role of decorative textiles in establishing group identities has contributed to great diversity of colour, pattern and style.
Transformations have not only occurred in textile technique and design. The function and meaning of Southeast Asian textiles changed over time to accommodate new circumstances, new political structures and new belief systems. As religious ceremonies have changed, so too has the role of textiles. Changing notions of modesty, for example, have contributed to the development of new garments in the region and new applications for existing fabrics. Various foreign influences have gradually encouraged changes away from rectangular and cylindrical cloths towards more structured clothing.
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Sometimes old cloths take on new meanings with new ideas from the modern world, and when ancient heirloom textiles are too fragile to be used as in the past, locally made substitutes have often assumed some of the status of the heirloom models, even those originally obtained from foreign sources. The original meanings of patterns have also changed and nowadays weavers often look to their immediate world to explain the meaning of motifs and are no longer aware of what they may have meant to their ancestors. Old motifs have sometimes been retained or reworked, often appearing with new symbols on the same textile. Recent social, religious and cultural change merely continues a process which has been occurring throughout history though at a dramatically faster rate.
(detail) patolu (Gujarat, India); sindé (Lio, Flores, Indonesia) treasured heirloom and ritual object Gujarat region, India; Indonesia silk, gold thread, natural dyes double ikat 462.0 x 104.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1981.1140
(detail) luka semba male ritual leader's shawl Lio people, Flores, Indonesia cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 209.0 x 72.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1981.1142
The sources of the motifs on Southeast Asian cloth were sometimes imported luxury fabrics such as the silk patola from north-west India. One of the most popular of all Indian textiles imported into Southeast Asia was the star-patterned patolu, known today in Patan (the only centre in Gujarat still to weave the double ikat silks) as the basket design, chhabadi bhat (Biihler and Fischer, 1979, vol.l: 77). The pattern appears on different coloured grounds, the most common versions having red or yellow backgrounds. The popularity of this textile inspired weavers from tnany Southeast Asian cultures to produce their own versions of its motifs and even design structure, which appear in cotton and silk, in batik and ikat, throughout the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
On some Southeast Asian fabrics the original Indian design was faithfully copied while on other textiles it was absorbed and incorporated into existing patterns. There is a striking congruity between certain ancient Indian textiles and even twentieth-century Lio cloths. However, while the brightly coloured Indian double ikats were obviously the original source of the dark brown and cream Lio designs, these trade cloths are now rare in this part of Indonesia, and Lio weavers nowadays associate the star-shaped motifs with certain types of local sea crabs.
kalamkari (south India); ma 'a or mawa (Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia) treasured heirloom and ritual object Petaboli district, Coromandel coast, India; Toraja region, central Sulawesi, Indonesia handspun cotton, natural dyes and mordants mordant painting, batik 225.0 x 134.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.1093
Indian
