Would a return to art’s ancient, primal function of elucidating religion signal its death? Or is our culture beginning to see the wisdom of a narrative that includes reconciliation, restoration and redemption?

As a watchman I can use this picture in something like the way it was intended to be used, and for that I am grateful. An artist in the fourteenth century wouldn’t have dreamed that one day there would be art connoisseurs and textbooks dedicated to something called art history. In Bernardo Daddi’s mind the painting must have been a kind of machine