Streets of London: Royal procession

The wedding.  The dress.  The kiss.

Spectators, fresh-faced choristers, flower-girls, prelates in embroidered copes, family in jewels were supported by highly polished cars, police, soldiers, and carriages.   Royal procession in the 21st century.

Clifford Geertz, anthropologist, wrote about 16th century procession.  The display of Elizabeth I made her authority visible.

Geertz also wrote about 14th century royal procession.  Hayam Wuruk was suspended in the Javanese cosmos between his people and the gods.  His authority was apparent in the length of his retinue, the magnificence of his gold and jewellery.

Later, down at the Thames, all was quiet.  I watched the tide, surging against a bollard, and made a drawing.

British Museum: Ornament of Oman

More exquisitely detailed costume...

Traditionally, for an Oman man, a weapon was part of everyday dress.  Fastened in a belt at the front of the tunic was a khanjar - a thick curved dagger sharpened on both edges.  It was said to take a month or more to make the blade.  The belt and the sheath were decorated with silver.

Traditionally, a dagger was also carried in Indonesia.  Men wore their keris in a belt.  Women might also wear a small sheathed keris, as a hair ornament.  The blade might be straight, or the edges shaped in almost-parallel wavy lines, gradually converging.  The craft to make these blades has been compared with the craft of samurai sword-makers.

The shape of waves can be elusive.  At Blackfriars Bridge, with joggers behind me, I watched water as it lapped against the Embankment.  I made a drawing.

British Museum: Parthenon Marbles

What can survive repeated conquest?  On the Acropolis: 

• The sanctuary for Athena was destroyed by Persians in 480 BC
• The Parthenon was completed in 432 BC, a Doric temple and treasure store
• In the 5th century AD the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church
• In the early 1460s it was converted into an Islamic mosque, with a minaret 
• In 1687 a Venetian bomb exploded the Turkish ammunition store inside, causing destruction
• In 1806 an Englishman took some of the sculptures to England.

Perhaps Indonesia had more luck - the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, the Dutch were interested in spices, not terrain.  Before them, other sailors and merchants came to trade: Chinese, Arab, Buddhist, Hindu.  And if later there were priests and dignitaries, their influence could be absorbed in a more gradual process.  That is, until the final period of colonial rule, as enlightened nations were building their empires.

The Thames has been flowing for thousands of years.  Today I watched it flow under Waterloo Bridge.  Waterloo: one of the last stands of Napoleon the Conqueror.  I made a drawing.

Tate Modern: Picasso

There was a room with several works from the 1930s, and a 1920s work in a separate exhibition.  The subjects (objects?) were mostly women.  It is astonishing to stand and stare as if this were an everyday occurrence, to be mere inches away, to see the overlaps of lines, to examine the edges and joins of coloured planes, and then walk backwards... and see the larger effect.

With a Sunday afternoon ice cream, I walked along the edge of the Thames to Southwark Cathedral, where bells were ringing, sounding like an Indonesian gamelan orchestra.  One person starts, and everyone joins in, playing each percussive part in cycling patterns.  In the breaks, bells could be heard across the water, at St Magnus the Martyr.  The tide came in.  I made a drawing.

British Museum - bronze bells

On the way in, there's a row of bronze temple bells, some from the Qing dynasty.  They're as tall as a child and they probably weigh ten times as much.  But they're not for ringing.  They sit on their rims, like statues.

In the Indonesian National Museuam there are bronze drums from Vietnam, and outside a bronze elephant, a gift from the King of Siam, Chulalongkorn, on a state visit to the Dutch East Indies in 1871.  In return, he is said to have received Buddhist statues from the temple at Borobudur.

My purse runs to less substantial artefacts - less statuary, more implements of daily life - a tartan scarf from Edinburgh, a book at the airport, a new set of pencils.

At Canary Wharf there was a spectacular sunset.  I made a drawing.

The British Museum - Enlightenment Gallery

It was a surprise to see them - in amongst the cases of ancient Greek and Egyptian artefacts - the Indonesian wayang masks and puppets, the bronze gamelan instruments.  A gong with the Indonesian central boss.

And there I was again, in a moment, at the door of the dusty showroom at the Bogor gong factory, 2 hours from Jakarta.  The Saturday traffic snarled and roared in the street behind me and, to the fore, the hammers of the workmen in the darkened forge chimed, gradually flattening the metal for another gong.  When my luck was in, there would be wayang golek for sale, as well as an assortment of gamelan.

The wooden golek heads and limbs were carved and painted in traditional elaboration.  The clothes were patterned and satin, sequin-studded.  It was an endless source of wonder.  'Which character is this?' I would ask.  They would tell me the name of the Ramayana character based on their examination of its features.  The carver provided no information other than the work itself.  Sometimes the staff would talk about it a bit.  Sometimes they would call in one of the older men to give a final opinion.

I stood in the Museum, looking at pieces collected 200 years ago.  They could have been collected yesterday.

I caught the train to the river, where a bird, probably looking much like its antecedents 200 years ago, was catching fish at low tide.  I made a drawing.

British Museum again - Balkan textiles

The richness and variety of the wedding dress was unexpected - layered and pleated, embroidered and crocheted, woollen and linen, draped with coin belts, fastened with embossed silver buckles.

The wedding dress of Indonesia was also unexpected - at least to my western, white-lace-trained eye.  I sat one day in a songket workshop in Palembang, south Sumatra, as a young women whirled about her length after length of red brocade - golden threads and silk in elaborate abstracts - patterns glinting in the dim light.

In the Balkans and Sumatra alike, companions also wore sumptuous clothes, grand gestures for moments of magnificence.

I took the number 19 bus to the Thames.  We passed through Sloane Square - a place of magnificence, with almost more fashion in the streets than in the shops.  Beside Battersea Park I made a drawing.

The British Museum - Afghanistan Exhibition

Soft power: changing perception, influence by invoking wonder.

The civilisations and trade routes of Afghanistan were illustrated by 3,000 years of artefacts - gold, glass, ivory - the statuary and other relics of cities and nomads - princesses, bearded bulls and river gods.

War was referenced in a shattered statue, delayed excavation, treasures in hiding.

The long history of Eurasian trade and civilisation was laid out, and the shorter stories of sporadic war.

As in Afghanistan, so in Indonesia.

But it was easier in Afghanistan, the investment was relatively small - horses and camels traversed deserts and mountains.  For Indonesia, one needed ships.

Later at Canary Wharf, I watched boats surge against the tide, and made a drawing.

Visit to the British Museum

Dashing around... assignments to write...

I dipped into the British Museum, to an exhibition of Islamic art.  In the 1400s, it seems, Islamic tile-makers were influenced by Chinese designs, and emulated the simple blue and white they saw on porcelain, traded from the Far East to the eastern Mediterranean.

In Cirebon, North Java, where Muslim traders are said to have brought their faith to Indonesia, Islamic palaces are tiled with ceramics from the Netherlands, in simple blue and white, simple maroon and white.  The tiles have Christian Biblical motifs - Adam and Eve and other stories.

Later, at Wood Wharf, I made a drawing.

A walk to Green Park, Buckingham Palace and St James's Park

The day became colder and colder.  Time to warm up with a walk.

As far as I could see in any direction, the bare trees of Green Park shaded into misty mauve.  The tonality refreshed my eyes.  This was a park for walkers, joggers and dog walkers.  In the grass near the southern fence, bulbs were starting to shoot short green leaves.

Across the road, the Palace was magnificent.  But when did the guards start to wear grey uniforms?  I thought they wore red.  Perhaps grey is for winter.  Preparations for the royal wedding must be well underway.  I could see no sign of bustle at the windows, but out in the street the Queen Victoria Memorial was under renovation - some of the statues were boarded up.

Across the road again, to St James's Park - a little further south, a little warmer perhaps?  Bulbs were in bloom: yellow, cream, violet.  Swans, ducks and geese paddled obligingly around the viewing area.  This was a park for saunterers, but it came on to rain, and I moved on.

In Jakarta, apart from golf courses, the large green space in the city is Medan Merdeka, with the white marble spire of the National Monument at its centre.  Under the spire, in the Hall of Contemplation, you can see the Declaration of Independence, read out by the voice of Sukarno.  It's very cool inside, a refuge from the heat for children, who slide down the Hall's sloping walls.  Unlike the golf courses, Medan Merdeka is open to all - sportsmen, boys flying kites, family picnickers, couples arm-in-arm, hawkers.  It's a venue for demonstrations, and the starting point for protesters marching down Jalan Thamrin, to the fountain at Tugu Selamat Datang (Welcome Statue) at Hotel Indonesia.

While I walked across London, the rain and cold intensified.  I sheltered at Adelphi Terrace, and made this drawing of the sky above the Thames.

A visit to the National Gallery

Time with the 1400s Netherlands painters - conventional religious imagery, intense colour.

The Dutch began trading in Indonesia much later, in 1596.  But the Chinese had already been trading in Indonesia for many years.

Outside the Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, the Chinese Spring Festival was underway.  Marking Year of the Rabbit, people in masks swayed to music, looking like massed Easter bunnies.  Children darted through the crowd with electronic coloured lanterns.  The 'snap' of throw-down fireworks was ubiquitous.

I went down to the Embankment away from the crowd, and made a drawing.  Across the Thames, the south side was a blaze of light.

A visit to the Royal Observatory

Coming through town, I passed the preparations for major demonstrations - stacks of placards, political parties proffering petitions, assemblies of police.  Soon they would head to Westminster, to protest decreased budgets and increased student fees.

Greenwich was quieter.  It is a major attraction to stand at the Prime Meridian, at longitude 0.  People of all ages and sizes line up, with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one in the west.

For visitors with a more technical interest in longitude, sea-going clocks made by John Harrison in the 1700s are on view in the royal astronomer's house.  If his clocks could be relied upon during long voyages, sailors could determine east-west position with accuracy, and navigate with confidence.

Captain James Cook tested Harrison's clocks in the late 1770s, as he sailed around the world.  He stopped for ship repairs in bustling Batavia in 1770, but, dismayed by the malaria prevalent at that time, he quickly moved on.

The malaria has gone, but the bustle remains.  Political demonstrations are an everyday part of life in Jakarta.  How often have loyal supporters in party-coloured T-shirts stood in the road directing traffic, finding ways for convoys of party-faithful waving party-coloured banners to navigate the choked streets.

Greenwich is quieter.  I stood at the water's edge and made this drawing.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

As usual, the Museum was busy and the Stone, when I arrived, was obscured by a large crowd.  Apparently it's the most popular exhibit.  Its early existence was also illustrious, a piece of a stela carved in 196 BC as a part of coronation ceremonies for the boy king Ptolemy V.  It records a tax exemption granted by Ptolemy V to priests  - written in 3 languages: hieroglyphics, understood by the priests, demotic, the language of the Egyptians at that time, and Greek.

The broken Stone, in its current form, was found during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in July 1799 - in Rashid on the west bank of the Nile, where it had been used as material to build a fort.  The Stone was taken to Europe where study of the 3 languages enabled translation of hieroglyphics.

One of the surprising things about Indonesia, to a westerner, is the number of scripts, apparently derived from Sanskrit, Arabic and Malay.  In the National Museum in Jakarta, numerous stones record these scripts.  Water was poured from the carved serpent heads at the top of one such massive stone, over a curse engraved on its face, and collected in a drinking vessel under its carved spout.  The curse, devised by a king, meant that whoever drank the water, if disloyal, would suffer terrible consequences.

These days, the water of the Thames is less malign.  I went down to Canary Wharf to make a drawing.

A visit to the Design Museum

From London Bridge Station I passed the business district south of the Thames, then warehouses converted to shops, but still with the feel of 'warehouse': mysterious fragrance, commodities in bales.  In the distance I could see the sign for the Design Museum.

The Jakarta Maritime Museum (Museum Bahari) is housed in warehouses where the Ciliwung enters Sunda Kelapa Harbour.  Dating from 1652, these buildings stored pepper, tea, coffee and cloth for the Dutch East India Company.  Today they display watercraft - traditional and modern, European and local - that navigated Indonesia.   The diversity in designs for ships and boats is surprising.  But, no doubt, each vessel was adapted for its circumstances.

The day I visited Museum Bahari, in the broad alley between the warehouses, a wedding party greeted guests.  The warehouses were dim, massive stone and timber constructions.  The wedding party was a shimmer of colour, light glanced from tapestry and lace, traditional garments and modern high heels.

In the Design Museum in London there was an exhibition of fashion drawings.  For the ships and boats of Indonesia, the design question was fitness for purpose.  For garments in London the issue was perception: sophistication.  These are two distinct reasons for design.

Outside the afternoon was chilly.  I made a drawing near Tower Bridge, and went home.

The Tate Modern Gallery again...

I went to see Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower Seeds' sculpture - 100 million hand-made slightly-larger-than-life glazed ceramic seeds spread across an expanse of floor - a field of undifferentiated grey in the distance shading to striped particles, light and dark, up close.

Conceptual art, the work reflects on propaganda and on small acts of humanity during the Cultural Revolution, as people shared sunflower seeds, and as people themselves were depicted as sunflowers turning to Mao, the sun.

The work also reflects on the modern-day 'Made in China' tag.  The artist worked with craftspeople in Jingdezhen, famous for its porcelain, drawing on their traditional skills.

Traditional skills are widely-practised in Indonesia: stone-carving, wood-carving, puppet-making, batik-making.  In the traditional workshops of Cirebon, women patiently heat wax resist and apply it in canting ('chanting') to silk, sitting in stillness, like Vermeer paintings.  Fine work is made to order, from the international market.

Outside, the days are longer.  This was a beautifully sunny day, if icy cold - it must be snowing somewhere.  I made this drawing near the Millennium Bridge then hurried home.

It was time to spend time in Greenwich...

It was an icy day, and the DLR line was under repair, but the decision had been made and the visit went ahead.  The driver of the substitute bus was delightful, if somewhat uncertain about the route.

When we finally arrived, I wandered around the hospital for veteran sailors (later the Royal Naval College).  There were memorials to heros.  In 1806, on the upper level of the Painted Hall, the body of Horatio, Lord Nelson lay in state, following the battle of Trafalgar.  Closer to the river, a statue marked Sir Walter Raleigh, 200 years earlier.

In Jakarta are many memorials to heros.  One National Hero, Diponegoro, is depicted as strong-willed and flamboyant.  A Javan prince from Yogyakarta, he led guerilla warfare against Dutch colonials from 1825 to 1930, until he was captured and exiled to Sulawesi (the Celebes).  His name lives on in history books, statues, in the title of a Semarang university and in the current title of the Central Java military region.

Wanting to head to the National Gallery, behind Nelson's Column and Trafalgar Square, I didn't have time for the vagaries of delightful bus drivers.  I took the launch and made a drawing on the way.