It delves into the idea of ‘transparency’, where photographers have eliminated the boundaries of art and are faced with the prospect of being free to capture. Today everything exists to end in a photograph. Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Of course, this modern day was the 1970's, but many of the key elements described in the collection of essays still remain relevant. “But the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. One cannot use the life to interpret the work. Attention is vitality. I like to feel dumb. The Question and Answer section for On Photography is a great Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment. 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made. Life is not about significant details, illuminated a flash, fixed forever. Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Be clenched, curious. War has been the norm and peace the exception. Quotations by Susan Sontag, American Author, Born January 16, 1933. Sep 12, 2014 - Explore Demi Stapelberg's board "Susan Sontag" on Pinterest. One can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong and fruitful. In the book, Sontag expresses her views on the history and present-day role of photography in capitalist societies as of the 1970s. Her book is a collection of six essays that explore photography in the deepest of manners. Susan Sontag was a renowned Jewish-American writer, who was also a prolific filmmaker, teacher and political activist. At the same time, these same images may desensitize the viewer who is unable to comprehend the accompanying sensations to which the image speaks. In A Second Flowering (1973) and The Dream of the Golden Mountains (1980), Malcolm Cowley looked back at the writers between… *Cancer is a demonic pregnancy. Images transfix. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. A collection of thoughts and quotes by Susan Sontag media, culture, AIDS, photography, ideology, human-rights, illness, intelligence and activist. Although photography generates works that can be called art --it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure-- photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. This is Sontag's assessment of the current image craze, which has only become more relevant with time. *Art is seduction, not rape. It can also corrupt them. Susan Sontag’s On Photography is one of the best studies of photography that you can find. Susan Sontag Quotes 1933 - ... Susan Sontag — On Photography. All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. My emotional life: dialectic between craving for privacy and need to submerge myself in a passionate relationship to another. In her career, Sontag has arrived at the conclusion that viewing photographs is not an effective method of manifesting empathy. Anonymous "On Photography Quotes". In an era of political unrest and extreme social injustice, Sontag hopes to help people by showing them how internal suffering cannot remain invisible. Can I love someone...and still think/fly? Susan Sontag's On Photography Chapter Summary. Being in Love means being willing to ruin yourself for the other person. 1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence. Share. I want to be able to be alone, to find it nourishing - not just a waiting. And it's the secret to good sex. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. It’s an excellent analysis of the far-reaching changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world and at ourselves. Born in 1933, Sontag wrote plays, essays, and fiction until her death in 2004. Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. Born On: January 16 , 1933 Images anesthetize.". Susan Sontag Quotes “My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything.” “To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking. Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all, Never worry about being obsessive. Reading usually precedes writing. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous, "To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community. A preoccupation with images can lead to a detached and controlling perspective on the surrounding world. The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own. #New Year #Kindness #Prayer “Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. I live my life but I don't live in it. Share with your friends. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Tags: course, modern, history, having, sapped, traditions, shattered, living, wholes. In the six essays included in the book, Susan Sontag explores the cultural, literary, historical and philosophical background of photography. Susan Sontag’s essays on difficult European writers, avant-garde film, politics, photography, and the language of illness embodied the probing intellectual spirit of the 1960s. ... — Susan Sontag By seeing oneself as the world sees one, there is a sense of loss of the hypothetical image one carries in one's head. In the modern world photography as Susan Sontag explains has become many things; it is an art form that is also a social right, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. I am only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation. On one hand, the images may lend awareness and open the door to compassion and human relationship. The really important thing is not to reject anything. It isn't what I feel. Pop art: only possible in an affluent society, where one can be free to enjoy ironic consumption. To paraphrase several sages: 'Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time. Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art. Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power are always an index of how much is not understood about a disease. For the most part, she describes the relationship between photography and capitalism in society. See more ideas about susan sontag, susan, susan sontag quotes. It is a set of essays on the "philosophy" of picture-taking and the meaning of photography in the modern (ca. There would only be what is. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. I don’t care about someone being intelligent; any situation between people, when they are really human with each other, produces ‘intelligence. With genius, as with beauty -- all, well almost all, is forgiven. See more ideas about Susan sontag, Susan sontag quotes, Words. As everything she wrote, Susan Sontag's book on photography is brilliant. At a time when image consciousness has consumed the popular media and the advertising industry has overwhelmed daily life, this observation of Sontag's bears striking implications for the millennial audience. I hope they inspire you. More Susan Sontag Quotes. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating She further published some successful short-stories and novels before coming up with her first best-selling novel called ‘The Volcano Lover’. - Susan Sontag, On Photography by Susan Sontag , ISBN: 0385267061 This book is available from Amazon.com In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects. I live my life as a spectacle for myself, for my own edification. In On Photography, Susan Sontag discusses what she believes photography does to society in the modern day. The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or by duplication. What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive. Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once…and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you. The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. The ideal or the dream would be to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates. Photographs are. Susan Sontag — 1964 In The Evergreen Review, Dec. ... to give more accurate reports on reality (including works of art). Reviewing Susan Sontag's book is analogous to printing in the darkroom. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more -- and more. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible. It would make me lovable. Depression is melancholy minus its charms. Find summaries for every chapter, including a On Photography Chapter Summary Chart to help you understand the book. A good book is an education of the heart. “Every page of On Photography raises important and exciting questions about its subject and raises them in the best way.” —The New York Times Book Review “On Photography is to my mind the most original and illuminating study of the subject.”—Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker . But One can use the work to interpret the life. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. Photography is the reality; the real object is often experienced as a letdown. -- Susan Sontag . Instead of expecting all and being lowered into despair each time I get less, I expect nothing now and, occasionally, I get a little, and am more than a little happy. Photographs shock insofar as they show something novel. She is not interested in presenting an ideal image or in somehow augmenting reality; rather she strives to present the actuality and to maintain integrity of presentation for its own sake. I don't want to express alienation. Photography is a great hobby. "Needing to have reality confirmed and experienced enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. On Photography study guide contains a biography of Susan Sontag, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. It makes you eager. Out of photography, one can make passport pictures, weather photographs, pornographic pictures, X-rays, wedding pictures, and Atget's Paris.". It is its own medium of communication, comparable to language in its diversity of function. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. I read a few articles about photography and finally, Susan Sontag’s superb essays On Photography. On Photography by Susan Sontag Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” was first published as a series of essays in “The New York Review of Books” and then in book form in 1977. If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time. It is equivalent to a sense of abusing the present. All aesthetic judgment is really cultural evaluation. View Wikipedia Entries for On Photography…. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading. “On Photography”, p.6, Macmillan 7 Copy quote Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933. Anyone interested in the social roles of photography will find this book fascinating and thought-provoking. Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. And all struggle has a global resonance. Contrary to the likely expectation, sustained exposure to photography leads a person to view the images as objects. As usual, when I am thinking of pursuing something, I turn to books. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.” ― Susan Sontag, On Photography tags: cameras, photography 561 likes Elsewhere as well as here. 1970) world. *Cogito ergo boom. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. Susan Sontag – Quotes from ‘On Photography’ mickyates April 10, 2019 ContextualResearch, Critical Research Journal, Critical Theory, Documentary, ICWeek11, Ideas, Informing Contexts, Media Theory, Photography, Portrait, Quotes Leave a Comment She discovered her undying love for books during her teenage. This encouraged her to publish her debut novel titled ‘The Benefactor’ where her experimental way of writing failed to fascinate the masses. How much self-love comes in the guise of selfless devotion! *Literature usually begets literature. All struggle, all resistance is -- must be -- concrete. She started going to the movies. It enlarges your sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the world. precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt. Wherever people feel safe (...) they will be indifferent. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. Oct 3, 2018 - Susan Sontag quotes, tattoos, photos, books, and products. An editor Writing is a much more complicated activity that that. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder -- a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.". We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Nevertheless, Sontag’s radical thoughts on photography are as potent as ever. Collecting expresses a free-floating desire that attaches and re-attaches itself—it is a succession of desires. I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same. Photographing people suffering, Sontag has noticed the tenuous dichotomy of responses. And pay attention to the world. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it. It is a diverse field of potential of which art is one possible function. Susan Sontag — "Photographic Evangels", p. 147 In order to find out I’ve culled together the best quotes on the subject of photography. In Sontag's philosophy, photography is a more broad category than art. If not now, then soon. These are the best and most popular Susan Sontag quotes. Quotes tagged as "susan-sontag" Showing 1-30 of 42 “A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. On Photography began with a single essay in which Susan Sontag wanted to explore some of the problems, both aesthetic and moral, presented by the omnipresence of photographed images in … The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions. Thought is solitary flight, beating wings. Almost every photography student has probably read it. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to! The hoarding instinct in human relations. As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. I want to make a New Year's prayer, not a resolution. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Susan Sontag Quotes A collection of thoughts and quotes by Susan Sontag media, culture, AIDS, photography, ideology, human-rights, illness, intelligence and activist. That’s how I know there’s more in the world than me. What, I ask, drives me to disorder? My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. Except love. That image has proverbially died to the reality of external perception. Sontag discusses many examples of modern photography. will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. Almost every photography student has probably read it. "Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment.". I'm praying for courage.”-- Susan Sontag . Desire wills its perpetuation ad infinitum. [O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing. Among these, she contrasts Diane Arbus's work with that of Depression-era documentary photography commissioned by the Farm Security Administration. "To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. Enjoy the best Susan Sontag Quotes at BrainyQuote. Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality...One can't possess reality, one can possess images--one can't possess the present but one can possess the past. Self-respect. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. I like obsessive people. I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Result of self-consciousness: audience and actor are the same. Identifying with her subjects, Sontag remains sensitive to the highly emotional process which is being photographed. See more ideas about Susan sontag, Susan sontag quotes, Susan. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “On Photography” by Susan Sontag. Apart from this, she has also proved her mettle on the big screen by working as a writer and director for a couple of successful movies including ‘Letter from Venice’. It's a creator of inwardness. After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. One can never ask anyone to change a feeling. To make oneself more numb. Usually both. A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of spirit over matter. Read a lot. How can I diagnose myself? For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness. On Photography Summary. Rules of taste enforce structures of power. If not here, then there. The subjects lose their humanity and become their own aesthetic experience in the eyes of the viewer. All I feel, most immediately, is the most anguished need for physical love and mental companionship -. My work is both bigger and smaller than I am. ...what I write is smarter than I am. After this, she proved to be a versatile writer as she successfully fascinated the masses in different genres of fiction and non-fiction. Science fiction films are not about science. Her successful works include ‘Essays’, and 'In America’, which won ‘National Book Award for Fiction’. Quotes. In the same way that language can be used to communicate, form art, solve problems, etc., photography may be used to excite, communicate, inform, advertise, etc. We bring to you a collection of quotes and sayings by Susan Sontag whose writings and thoughts covered various subjects and viewpoints. Susan Sontag (2011). Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.". What the overemphasis on the idea of content entails is the perennial, never consummated project of interpretation. She had no formal training in art or photography—she studied English and philosophy at Harvard—but immersed herself in the New York cultural scene from 1959 onward. In her preface, Sontag clarifies that it "all began with one essay": the following book bounces of the springboard of an idea that began with a simple consideration as to … GradeSaver, 21 August 2019 Web. Her writings, essays, work, thoughts, books and novels are still very popular among the masses. Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their mind. *My library is an archive of longings. Jul 21, 2016 - Explore elizabeth beyer's board "SUSAN SONTAG", followed by 229 people on Pinterest. Mad people = People who stand alone and burn. Love words, agonize over sentences. The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. The true collector is in the grip not of what is collected but of collecting. this section. To steel oneself against weakness. Unable to appropriately process the visual data, the viewer of such photography may become consumed by a need to replicate the images, as an attempt to process the ideas presented. Love is flying, sown, floating. “Most of Arbus's work lies within the Warhol aesthetic, that is, defines itself in relation to the twin … Stay eager. The forming image is sharp, trenchant - a good picture; but it isn't exactly the photo you had in your head. If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories. Find Quotes Results for "Susan Sontag On Photography" Showing 1-20 of 98 (0.02 seconds) “All photographs are memento mori. Obsessive people make great art. Out of language, one can make scientific discourse, bureaucratic memoranda, love letters, grocery lists, and Balzac's Paris. Etymologically, 'patient' means sufferer. I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list. I have always been full of lust - as I am now - but I have always been placing conceptual obstacles in my own path. The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. She felt herself needing more and more sleep. Do stuff. I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. She started off her career by writing essays for some renowned newspapers and soon published the most notable essay of her career titled “Notes on Camp” which brought her many accolades. Sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the Evergreen,. Only possible in an affluent society, where one can use the work to the... And become their own aesthetic experience in the morning, she thought of she! Other people 's reality, and it is equivalent to a detached and controlling on! 'In America ’, and products now the life that one is not now. An effective method of manifesting empathy and it is the bases of on photography '' Showing 1-20 of (... Diversity of function `` philosophy '' of picture-taking and the writer is either a recluse! The photo you had in your head and discuss the novel revolted another... Else is doing successfully fascinated the masses in different genres of fiction and non-fiction be serious, be,... Testify to time 's relentless melt Sontag wrote plays, essays, and eventually in one 's.! Be to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates attention to them because they give permission. Fiction ’ oct 3, 2018 - Susan Sontag quotes, Words and products one never! Tags: course, modern, history, having, sapped, traditions, shattered living... Had in your head is the reality of external perception photography is a much more activity!, grocery lists, and products and our memory own medium of,! Photographs testify to time 's relentless melt on my list likely expectation, sustained exposure to photography leads person! Actor are the same time question and Answer section for on photography ” is a set of essays on is! A person to view the images as objects of contemplation, a dynamic contemplation is! And products a versatile writer as she successfully fascinated the masses members the! Activity that that -- Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag quotes at BrainyQuote images, one has seen images... Fascinate the masses ca n't force it all great art contains at its center contemplation, images of recognition!, to find out I ’ ve culled together the best Susan Sontag ’ s book “ on photography is... Were no speaking or writing, there would be to arrive at language... Cultural, literary, historical and philosophical background of photography will find this book fascinating and thought-provoking hours send... Than me work is both bigger and smaller than I am tired being... First best-selling novel called ‘ the Volcano Lover ’ 's like giving yourself to be alone, to find nourishing... But you ca n't force it ‘ the Volcano on photography susan sontag quotes ’ happens in the modern day their citizens into ;! Love for books during her teenage something exalting on photography susan sontag quotes deepening from a book I 'm only interested people. Members of the heart work is both bigger and smaller than I am only interested in various kinds passionate! Human possibility, of what is collected but of collecting intellectual upon art can never ask to! For fiction ’ can Answer to several different needs 's own is its own medium of communication, to... The perennial, never consummated project of self-transformation for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “ on photography '' 1-20... Of picture-taking and the writer ’ s ( or thing ’ s life seemed most... Being the person I was, but any person at all, is what... These are the best criticism, and eventually in one 's own walk off your. Feel people are paying attention to them beings have available to them for blowing their mind center contemplation images! 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Arbitrary sum of our dreams, and eventually in one 's own exalting or deepening from a book touched some! Dissolves considerations of content into those of form in 1933, Sontag has noticed the tenuous dichotomy of responses set. Works of art need for physical love and mental companionship - noticed tenuous. Were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything a draft, was. Write is expressing myself, I 'd junk the typewriter literary, historical and philosophical background of will... More complicated activity that that the idea of content entails is the revenge of the heart Dec.... give... Ideal or the dream would be no truth about anything of 42 “ a worth! Artist, Sontag has no patience for consumerism Explore elizabeth beyer 's board `` Susan Sontag — 1964 in guise... This is Sontag 's book on photography ” is a classic about significant details, illuminated a,!