Batik printing is a sort of age-old traditional folk handicraft for fabric printing and dyeing in China. It was named together with tie dyeing and stencil printing as "Three Major Printing Crafts in Ancient China". Stripes on wax printed cloth result from natural chapping of wax, which is of uncertainty and hence contributes to the uniqueness of every wax printed work. Batik printing is thus known as a sort of cloth painting with "Fingerprints". Featuring rich patterns, elegant color and peculiar style, wax printed cloth is used to make costumes, trappings and various living utensils with primitive, novel, eye-catching and ethnic characteristics.
Known as "laxie" in ancient times, batik printing is a time-honored dye-proof craft in China. The traditional craft for batik printing has been spreading in some minority regions in Southwest China and has been inherited and carried forward in minority regions in Guizhou Province. By now, it has served as an indispensable art in the life of women in these regions. Trappings worn by them such as handkerchiefs, belly bands, clothes, skirts and leg wrappings are unexceptionally made by batik printing. Batik printing prevalent in different ethnic minorities in Guizhou Province is provided with diversified features. For instance, wax printed patterns prevailing in the Miao ethnic group are of bronze drum patterns passed down from ancient times. Such patterns also take folk tales or commonly seen flowers, birds, insects and fish as the subject matter. In contrast, geometrical patterns are popular with Buyi ethnics.
Having been handed down from generation to generation in minority regions in Southwest China, the art of batik printing has been endowed with peculiar artistic style and enjoys the fame of "ethnic artistic flower of distinctive Chinese features". Currently, the primarily self-sufficient wax printed products made by handicraftsmen and women have, together with the "Wax Printed Painting" (a sort of purely appreciative artwork made by people, mainly artists), extended to global market and displayed the unique enchantment of Chinese art.
