Reminds me of the last few paragraphs of Brideshead. Something like the single lamp left in the [chapel’s] window guiding the crusaders home. But the passage you cite describes the entire notion of modern “art,” banal, venal, mindless precisely because of the absence of God.
Somehow Waugh slipped under my radar for many years, and I’ve only started really getting acquainted with his work in the last year or two...truly a fascinating individual.