This is part of a larger cultural shift: once religion was the repository of value and social/cultural coherence; then, during and after the 19th-century, art takes over that role. This was a quite specific thing: the rise of "English" (that is, literature) as a main school and university subject was the result of a movement to find something to replace the post-Nietzschean exploded potential of religion: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203025437-10/english-come-robert-eaglestone