The glue that is art

For if the sun does not strike us with wonder, from its being customary, much more do works of art fail, and we only look at them like things of clay. … He instituted arts, that our present state of existence might be held together by them, not that we should separate ourselves from spiritual things, not that we should devote ourselves to the base arts but to the necessary ones, that we might minister to one another's good, and not that we should plot one against another.
St. John Chrysostom