What will be known in 500yr will only be stuff of very major importance will be art that seeks to document or memorialize the most important events of our time.

What will be known in 500yr will only be stuff of very major importance will be art that seeks to document or memorialize the most important events of our time. What art do we have that's still widely known from the 1500s? Well, outside of Mona Lisa and the works of Shakespeare the general Western public is probably only going to recognize depictions of the key players and events of the time. The official portrait of Henry VIII, depictions of Luther, the Spanish armada, the Spanish conquest of the new world, stuff like that. With respect to purely creative works, e.g. Shakespeare, that was just high quality pop culture art of the time. They didn't know it would stand the test of time. Only looking back generations later was the influential art of the renaissance identifiable. Even when it comes to current events most stuff that is of major "will be known in centuries" importance we don't yet know is of major importance and will not be identifiable as such until later.