Bridget Riley at the National Gallery

There was new abstract work, painted directly onto the wall.

There was a film about influences - painters using colour in shape and direction - spoken by Bridget Riley.

There was a line of thought about perception as, after the Renaissance, painters moved away from belief in the existence of the traditional subjects of painting.

Abstraction in central Java has other meanings, printed on fabric - geometric patterns for the clothes of various types of court official and servant.

In batik shops in Jakarta, amongst the modern pieces, you can find metres of fabric with naive figurative patterns - farmers tilling rice fields, foreign armies with cannon, modern armies with tanks, kings hunting with their retinues, and the ultramodern motifs of the ultrarich - moguls playing golf, with their golf buggies.

Walking down to Jubilee Bridge the midday winter sun was blinding, ferociously hot, after a week of snow and ice.  I made a drawing of sun.