Obiter has noticed that every so often the art world experiences a paradigm shift – think of the Dutch noticing how perspective worked, or the day Tracey Emin decided not to make her bed.

Likewise closer to home, where the Law Society Art Group is holding its 53rd annual exhibition. Obiter wandered into the Chancery Lane Reading Room to discover… you’ve all gone right off France. And Italy. And it looks like most of you who paint have left your watercolours undisturbed, preferring oils and acrylic.

Where in last year’s show Obiter saw pale washes of various chateaux and, in one case, a bottle of Saint-Émilion – this year (was it the Olympics? The Jubilee? Something we said?) subjects were more often in Blighty. Step forward the pretty Pennine village of Haworth in Yorkshire (eight works – Clive Sayer and others), up-Thames in Richmond (Jean Field), Hastings and Southwold (John Joseph), and bluebell woods (various). Artist Peter Lanyon’s old stamping ground at Porthleven, Cornwall, also got a look in (Rabiya Nagi).

Perhaps most thought-provoking is ‘Jagger’s View’ (pictured), an oil in which Peter Haycroft has positioned the rock star, dressed as Uncle Sam, in the sky over what looks, to Obiter, like Petersham.

But in a tight field, Obiter’s favourite pieces were those by Edwin Coe associate Pey Kan Su. Because of the Gazette’s status as a family read, Nudes ‘I’ and ‘II’ cannot appear here, but they stand out for ease of technique and spot-on composition.

The show is in the Reading Room to 18 January.