Don't Know What You've Got 'til It's Gone

If, as Tom Wolfe has suggested, Art has taken the place of religion for some in the educated classes, then what takes the place of faith, the "evidence of things not seen"? Lost and missing Art, perhaps?

The Guardian offers up a virtual gallery of the lost, destroyed and missing, some well known (Cellini's salt cellar) and others, to me at least, more obscure (such as Lucian Freud's surprisingly moving little portrait of Francis Bacon, which appears to display the influence of a favorite of mine, Sir Stanley Spencer ). An interesting reflection on the way in which absence can be stronger than presence.

[Link via ArtsJournal.]