In the decree on liturgy we have two chapters on music and on the arts. The focus of the discourse is already narrowed down when it speaks of sacred music and sacred art. The Council turns back to the arts again when it speaks of culture in its last decree on the Church in the Modern World. In keeping with the thrust of this decree which acknowledges the autonomy of the human, it starts with a reflection on the human purpose of art and literature. One can see here a dichotomy between the secular and the sacred.
Art is considered relevant only in so far as it promotes the sacred.
The Document on the Church in the Modern World, as it highlights the relative autonomy of culture, tries to extend it also to the arts. But the context of the sacred soon takes over. Given the prevalent dichotomy between the secular and sacred, art is subordinated to the necessity of ritual and celebration. There is no wonder then that sacred art, when it moves out of the area of objects that used to surround worship, is largely illustrative either of stories from sacred history, both biblical and ecclesiastical, or of abstract themes like the virtues. Even the images of the patrons formed part of a sacred setting.