If the art of "rozome" (wax-resist dyeing) were a moon in the sky, it would be full and glowing brightly. Having waned in importance as a textile-patterning process at the end of the Nara Period (710-794), wax-resist dyeing re-emerged in early 20th-century Japan. Rozome artist/author Betsy Sterling Benjamin has carefully researched and assembled an engaging guide to viewing the past and present expression of this waxing phenomenon in "The World of Rozome." Now available in paperback, the book's gallery of masterpieces in gorgeous color will entice an even greater worldwide audience of English speakers to read about the distinctive qualities of both rozome artists and the art they create from cloth, wax and dye.
Why did early Heian Period dyers stop stamping cloth with hot wax that hardens and "resists" the penetration of dye -- thus creating pattern? A related process, "shibori" (inadequately described as "tie-and-dye" in English), has been continuously employed from ancient times to the present day. Benjamin prepares to answer this question by first leading us through the fascinating (and well-illustrated) transnational history of the process. Her thoroughly documented research shows that fabric carrying this information flowed through early Greece, Egypt, Persia and India to Central Asia and China. It was trade during the Tang Dynasty (618-906) that brought wax-stamping technology to Japan.
Benjamin devotes an entire chapter to describing the Tang-influenced rozome found in the eighth-century Shosoin repository at Todaiji Temple in Nara. Here, "a wealth of ancient textiles . . . were dedicated to the Buddha and placed in huge storage boxes . . . for over a millennium." Japanese artisans "possibly working under emigre supervision" used both cloth and paper to produce wrapping cloths, costumes, screens, floor cloths and Buddhist banners. She suggests the technique fell out of favor in the early Heian Period as court life turned inward, shunning imports and foreign practices. The sweet odor of beeswax that lingered in the cloth may also have been repugnant to Heian olfaction.