In such a society, art is made for the transitory moment rather than eternity. Unable to hint of eternal values, it becomes insidiously valueless. Constantly modernizing to keep up with a constantly modernizing society, it becomes more and more ephemeral—at best a passing fancy of an artist struggling to be aucourant, at worst an ingratiating panderer to the crowd. Lacking an ideal reason for being—an anchor in eternity, as it were—works of art become so many “floating existences.” “Life is short, art long,” Hippocrates famously wrote, but today art has become much shorter than life.