LIBERATION

The emphasis on the historical development of art rather than on individual achievement definitely increases the value of the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art as far as the University is concerned. Escape from the narrow present view is the escape of liberalism.

This change of emphasis is especially important for work in the plastic and pictorial arts, for action and reaction are apt to follow so swiftly at each other's heels that it becomes difficult to preserve the best of the old in the new. Art becomes petrified in ceaseless change. Especially since the nineteenth century the liberation of art has tended to become its libertinage. The historical view can be among the best of those reality-correctives which determine the fine balance between technique and substance.