Is this photo a modern masterpiece?

Or is the praise surrounding it merely a “bit of sentimental hungover tosh”? The fun began early in the New Year when BBC producer Roland Hughes tweeted out photographer Joel Goodman’s image of a Manchester street scene on New Year’s Eve.

The post went viral, with some likening it to paintings from the Renaissance.

It does have a postmodern appeal, an experiment in classical composition for a godforsaken world. But others were not so impressed, including The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones, who provided the above quote about sentimentality in an inevitable hot take. The BBC’s Hughes responded, and we give him the last word.