The hidden history of a controversial $6m banana

Art history proves the point. More than 400 years ago, Caravaggio split the opinions of his contemporaries with the groundbreaking levels of violence, sexual tension and darkness of his religious paintings, factors that brought him to international prominence. The artists of the 19th Century who are nowadays most valorised, such as JMW Turner, John Constable, Manet, Monet, Gauguin, Whistler and Cézanne, had pioneered new approaches to art-making, which reaped public ridicule from critics. As a result, by the dawn of the 20th Century, artistic innovation and mainstream scorn were increasingly seen as two sides of the same coin.