Abstract

To answer those questions we shall have to consider successively to what extent all art is implicitly religious, what makes particular aesthetic expressions explicitly sacred, and how a secular culture affects either one or both of those modes. My overall thesis is that authentic art at all times, including our own, retains a potentially sacred quality. Controversial enough as it stands, this thesis does not imply that a genuinely sacred art must exist or is even possible at all times. Let us then first investigate the more general case.