Indonesian Geometrical Ornament: Tumpal

Welcome to the first post of Indonesian Ornamental Design series.

As we know, previously stated: I will bring a series of posts honouring and celebrating Indonesian geometrical ornaments.

This is a post of an ornament called Tumpal. A beautiful design that never fails to catch my eyes especially the ones in batik.

The best known application of the tumpal is perhaps in the textile and batik art. Both in the woven sarung and in batiked cloth one may find a broad strip across the cloth. This is called "kepala" ("head") and is ornamented with two rows of tumpals whose tips approach each other.

In the batik work tumpals usually occur in the shapes of isosceles triangles. But sometimes the triangle itself is omitted, so that only the tendril ornamentation remains, although its outline is still more or less triangular. This is the case with the mesmerising cloth originating from North Bali: whilst the ornament itself has assumed the form of a tree, the tree of life. The cloth is multicoloured, the tumpals being woven in with green, purple, yellow and blue silk threads, and partly also with gold thread.

Also in the kain songket the tumpal motif is generally found. In these cloths the ornament is not batiked on, but is woven in with gold thread. We may see an example of gold woven tumpal on kain songket from Palembang, Sumatera.

Here shown a pic of sarung from Lasem, East Java, with tumpal design in the kepala (head). The tumpals in this case are filled in with designs that strongly indicate Chinese influence.

Wether is woven or batiked, tumpal is a marvelous design handed to us in ways of beauty.

...
One night as the stars scattered upon the  dark sky, I rose and pick up my brush... my mind filled with glee for a pattern I'm starting to see. A token of my admiration towards tumpal, in shades of light blues.

Cheers to tumpal..!

Kind regards,
Naomi