Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

Wharton criticizes a strain of modern artistic culture that equates originality with never repeating or revisiting established forms. Calling this fear a “symptom of immaturity,” she suggests that serious art grows through apprenticeship, tradition, and conscious dialogue with predecessors rather than through novelty for its own sake. The “dread” she names is less about influence than about insecurity: an anxious need to appear unprecedented. Implicitly, Wharton defends the idea that enduring artistic achievement often comes from reworking familiar themes with greater precision, depth, or moral insight, and that innovation can be evolutionary rather than purely disruptive.