Hegel on the Future of Art

How many of us would seriously place Rauschenberg besides Rembrandt, Cage besides Bach? Stepping into a museum or concert hall we enter an aesthetic church, a sublime and rather chilly necropolis, stretching back across time, where Leonardo and Van Gogh, Palestrina and Beethoven join frozen hands. Part of this attitude is an often almost religious reverence and respect, but also a certain indifference. We sense that what truly matters lies elsewhere. What needs preserving does so precisely because it has lost its place in our world and must therefore be given a special place -- often at great expense.

Karsten Harries, "Hegel on the Future of Art"
1974