Zakaria Ali’s principles as a method of analysis in uncovering the content of batik painting artworks / Shazani Shamsuddeen

Between the years 1956 and the year Malaysia attained its independence, there was a consciousness among local artists regarding the search for cultural identity. This consciousness was later fuelled by the establishment of the National Cultural Congress in 1971, which called on artists to incorporate themes associated with Malay culture into their artworks. The seismic rise and affirmation of post-colonial Malay has led to a marked change in the subjects depicted in Malaysian batik art, as well as other art forms by artists who were motivated to revisit at traditional art forms and artefacts. Despite this, there was very little coverage of the event because there was no significant effort made to document the progression of events. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of writings in Malaysian art on the critical analysis of artworks. These research objectives are to explore the development of Malaysian batik in visual art and the selected artists that apply the batik techniques and elements in the making of their artworks; and to provide a comprehensive document on the analysis of the selected artworks in order to evaluate the essence of Malayness using the theory designed by Zakaria Ali. History disciplines and analytical observation were conducted in order to achieve the objectives of the study. The results of this research will suggest the emergence of Malay artistic and cultural heritage values that can be traced in batik paintings in the context of visual art that coincides with the principles of Malay aesthetics articulated by Zakaria Ali and in line with the 1971 National Cultural Congress policy.