Last night I had the great pleasure of attending a compelling and edifying lecture by the historian and writer Simon Schama in which, among other poignant comparisons, he displayed a slide of Damien Hirst’s famous sheep-floating-in-formaldehyde sculpture Away from the Flock, made in 1994, next to Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat of 1854; he juxtaposed these images in order to illustrate what he sees as a penchant among British artists for looking at history through a wistful lens. Hirst certainly wasn’t the focus of Schama’s lecture, which had mainly to do with how artists have depicted the city of London, and cities in general, over the years, but it has to be said that it was shockingly refreshing to hear Hirst’s work discussed outside the context of his recent market machinations. We need more of this. It seems every day there is new news to do with Hirst’s business plan; today brought an article about layoffs in his company, Science Ltd.

Banksy is another artist who hasn’t really been given his due, art historically speaking — too many accounts of him dwell on his celebrity/new market darling status, or on sensationalizing his antics, or on speculation about who he in fact might actually be — and at one point in his talk Schama hinted that he may compose a lecture on the elusive street artist. Let’s hope he does.