What remains from the religious painting tradition?

For a long time Art was wholly focused on the ethereal, the infinite and the divine. Undoubtedly, if Art in itself still lays any claims to these qualities it is remainder of this tradition.

 

One may argue that this tradition extends further back to the primitive Arts of ritual, the sacred and ceremony. If such a line is to be drawn, the question remains, what is still religious in Art? In what ways does Art still aspire to divinity and the infinite, albeit in secularised forms.

 

Has Art really changed with the decline of religion? What did Art lose in its secularisation, what did it gain?

 

 

 

And so a minor secondary question: could Benjamin thus be countered here with something more similar to Weber - is Aura primarily linked to the religious and not so much to mechanical reproduction?