ABSTRACT
The need for relief from the accelerative paces of the real world suggests a view of art as a refuge. This is a primary factor now operating to inflate the value of the older, socially accepted works of art. Certified by histori-cal selectivity, these are assumed to be understood, thereby releasing the spectator/listener from any obligation to exert effort. But the nature of the perspective that art gives to life as it is lived changes as human contexts change. Beginning as an agent of communal purposes, the artisan later became responsible to an aristocratic elite and in the process became what we call an artist. Egalitarian trends returned him to the service of a mass public but on a far less utilitarian, more esoteric basis. Now, as the capacity for the storage and retrieval of information expands almost limitlessly and subcultures proliferate, the artist is pressured to adjust his output to the variegated needs of a mass of subgroups, to learn to tailor and differentiate his products according to rapidly evolving needs and standards. The work of more than one important composer and filmmaker now clearly indicates the fascination that exploration of unfamiliar pace holds.1 Where art, magic, and their attendant excitement may have once provided a highly stimulative contrast from dreary routine, we now face a turnabout, where certain types of art may become a refuge.
