The Power of Art: A World History in Fifteen Cities
Caroline Campbell (Bridge Street Press, £30)
CAROLINE CAMPBELL, art historian and director of the National Gallery of Ireland, is unapologetic about her faith in great art, but she is a champion of the transformative power of minor art, too. Running through this book, an ambitious history of the world, is the stuff of everyday lives through the millennia—pottery and coins, bricks and manuscripts, cloth and furniture. Art, she says, ‘gains its power from its ability to fuel and drive our emotions’ and ‘a bowl or plate you cherish’ can do that every bit as much as a Rembrandt or a Bernini.
To tell her story, she looks at 15 cities at 15 different periods that encapsulate 15 traits. For Dr Campbell, Jerusalem in the 10th century BC epitomised faith; the essence of 15th-century Florence was competition;
