I read John Berger on the school bus; it is a lovely hand-sized book. He is talking about how we see paintings differently now from the way they would have been seen when they were first produced; the context is different, they're not in their churches or stately homes any more but in galleries, chosen and displayed according to someone's taste, and when we look at them now (especially if they're famous paintings) our thoughts are, 'I am standing in front of the original of this famous painting', what impresses us is its provenance and the fact that it has survived, rather than the story told by the picture.

He makes a comparison with the sort of collages people put on their pinboards in their rooms, of postcards and little notes and photos to display, this is what I like, this is me, look at my collection and see who I am - and the art displays in a gallery. This is what someone else has done, it is their choice of pictures and display. This is who I am, look how rich, how Christian, how British, how well-travelled I am.

I think of the paint colours on the walls of the Fitzwilliam and the effects they have on the paintings themselves; has the decorator changed the artwork, by choosing to display it on a wall painted mustard or olive when it might have been painted for a church interior? Perhaps Jim Ede's meticulous arrangement at Kettles Yard is more honest in its display; there's no attempt to disguise him saying 'this is me, this is what I like', and I come away with a strong sense of Jim Ede as the curator, stronger even than a sense of the artists whose work he has collected.

At school, there are displays in the corridors, put up in time for Open Day, displays which are designed to say, this is who we are, this is what we stand for. I wonder what galleries like the National are saying, in their choice of pictures and arrangements, and if they think they are speaking for us all.