This article tries to explain a current typical paradox: contemporary art, although desacralized by modern secularism and the application of Enlightenment reason to every field of life, still keeps many of its former sacred features. This sacrality is analyzed from three different points of view tied to three main elements of art, understanding the latter as a communication process: the artist, the artwork itself and the aesthetic experience. The conclusion is the same in all three cases: the survival of sacred (...) nature in the artistic field in contrast to its weakening or full vanishing in the ideological general field of western culture. (shrink)