Nevertheless, Islamic art traditions of eschewing the subject in favour of calligraphy and
abstract approaches are not a dominant school in Indonesian art, although we see the influence of calligraphy in batik painting, and other Indonesian artists have depicted subject matter such as the haj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), among them Widayat. Affandi was also a Haji. It is also important to note that Indonesia has had many artistic exchanges with countries in the Middle East as well as with Malaysia, with its strong Muslim traditions.