Plenty of art historians will bristle at the name of Kelly Grovier’s new book, published by Thames & Hudson. How Banksy Saved Art History is purposefully outrageous, just as its subject is, suggesting that the anonymous Bristol-based artist has managed to dredge old relics out of fusty irrelevance. The book’s introduction sets out a 1990s art world in flux, the same decade that the artist emerged; just in time for Banksy to rescue it, it seems.

However, the contents are more measured than the name suggests, carefully joining the dots between museum and street as it situates his paintings, sculptures, screenprints, and stencilled murals within the art history context that he so often draws from.

Over a series of coyly named micro-chapters, the book brings together reproductions of artworks by Monet, Rembrandt, Vermeer and da Vinci, through to more recent or living artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Damien Hirst.

These sit alongside Banksy’s reinterpretations of them, offering both a satisfying before and after comparison as well as a deeper read of those original pieces, helping audiences to understand the significance and symbolism that would have drawn Banksy to them in the first place.

Throughout, the book makes clear that the artist is taking aim less at the artworks or artists themselves, and more at the art world that controls value and celebrity, often to the detriment of the original pieces. “Some works of art are so famous, we no longer really see them,” Grovier writes in the chapter looking into Vermeer’s 17th-century portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is joined by Banksy’s response stencilled on a wall in Bristol, earring replaced with a security alarm.

This is of course an argument you could now leverage at some of Banksy’s own works. It’s no more surprising to see a Girl with Balloon poster in someone’s living room than a ‘live, laugh, love’ sign. The commercialisation of his work operates on two extremes – the other being the highest (priced) echelons of the art market, which the book doesn’t interrogate too much. Instead, it offers a refreshing look at art history by showing how Banksy has plumbed its depths – all while becoming part of it at the same time.

How Banksy Saved Art History by Kelly Grovier is published by Thames & Hudson; thamesandhudson.com