I have this picture in my mind of the apostles, gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem, being inspired to go out on missionary journeys that resulted in a Church that now numbers a third of the planet in its ranks. And they are looking not at the astonishing sight of Jesus himself, back from the dead, but at a cloth.
Both Greece and Rome has an elaborate visual arts culture that sets examples for serious artists today. Granted, not so much the Jewish culture, but the Greeks were all over the place, met with Jesus and joined the disciples. St. Luke was Greek and he described the supper at Emmaus. Were the Emmaus disciples sitting at supper with an optical illusion?
Besides, people buried other people, some of them bloodied, in burial cloths whether they had taken art appreciation classes or not. Then one particular burial cloth gave them a conversion experience?
This "academic" is sure good at selling books.
The shroud does have blood on it. And being Jewish, and dead things or things associated with dead things being unclean, I pretty much doubt they would have had the shroud nearby. Also recall that the image is not easily seen by the naked eye. It wasn’t until that guy took a photo of it and saw the negative that the image was really seen for what it was.
Obviously it would have been a relic even without seeing an image, which is why someone grabbed it (along with the head cloth - I forget what that is called, but it is at some other church, and has similar pattern of blood stains, etc.)
However, regarding the Jew’s aversion to things associated with the dead - I wonder who grabbed the clothes?