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. In the six essays included in the book, Susan Sontag explores the cultural, literary, historical and philosophical background of photography. Tags: course, modern, history, having, sapped, traditions, shattered, living, wholes. Can I love someone...and still think/fly? It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. My emotional life: dialectic between craving for privacy and need to submerge myself in a passionate relationship to another. Born in 1933, Sontag wrote plays, essays, and fiction until her death in 2004. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading. Because I can rewrite it. Etymologically, 'patient' means sufferer. In the book, Sontag expresses her views on the history and present-day role of photography in capitalist societies as of the 1970s. “Most of Arbus's work lies within the Warhol aesthetic, that is, defines itself in relation to the twin … Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all, Never worry about being obsessive. Share. We bring to you a collection of quotes and sayings by Susan Sontag whose writings and thoughts covered various subjects and viewpoints. Contrary to the likely expectation, sustained exposure to photography leads a person to view the images as objects. Photography is a great hobby. I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. I like to feel dumb. With genius, as with beauty -- all, well almost all, is forgiven. The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. 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. Find Quotes Results for "Susan Sontag On Photography" Showing 1-20 of 98 (0.02 seconds) “All photographs are memento mori. *Literature usually begets literature. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more -- and more. The forming image is sharp, trenchant - a good picture; but it isn't exactly the photo you had in your head. I want to make a New Year's prayer, not a resolution. A preoccupation with images can lead to a detached and controlling perspective on the surrounding world. Share with your friends. -- Susan Sontag . Thought is solitary flight, beating wings. Susan Sontag Quotes A collection of thoughts and quotes by Susan Sontag media, culture, AIDS, photography, ideology, human-rights, illness, intelligence and activist. It is its own medium of communication, comparable to language in its diversity of function. All I feel, most immediately, is the most anguished need for physical love and mental companionship -. ...what I write is smarter than I am. The ideal or the dream would be to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates. Wherever people feel safe (...) they will be indifferent. In an era of political unrest and extreme social injustice, Sontag hopes to help people by showing them how internal suffering cannot remain invisible. It makes you eager. I live my life as a spectacle for myself, for my own edification. Susan Sontag Quotes “My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything.” “To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. If not now, then soon. On Photography Quotes by Susan Sontag. It would make me lovable. After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. My urge to write is an urge not to self-expressionism but to self-transcendence. 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. Quotes tagged as "susan-sontag" Showing 1-30 of 42 “A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. Sontag discusses many examples of modern photography. On Photography study guide contains a biography of Susan Sontag, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Desire wills its perpetuation ad infinitum. I don't want to express alienation. precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt. 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. 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. Love words, agonize over sentences. Among these, she contrasts Diane Arbus's work with that of Depression-era documentary photography commissioned by the Farm Security Administration. I don’t care about someone being intelligent; any situation between people, when they are really human with each other, produces ‘intelligence. Love is flying, sown, floating. 1970) world. It's a creator of inwardness. Elsewhere as well as here. And it's the secret to good sex. To make oneself more numb. To steel oneself against weakness. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.". Susan Sontag Quotes 1933 - ... Susan Sontag — On Photography. 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 … She started going to the movies. Mad people = People who stand alone and burn. I'm praying for courage.”-- Susan Sontag . The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. 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. To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time. 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. Photographs shock insofar as they show something novel. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions. What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive. 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 Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. After this, she proved to be a versatile writer as she successfully fascinated the masses in different genres of fiction and non-fiction. Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Images transfix. Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once…and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you. "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. As usual, when I am thinking of pursuing something, I turn to books. 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. Susan Sontag — "Photographic Evangels", p. 147 “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 . War has been the norm and peace the exception. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. Quotations by Susan Sontag, American Author, Born January 16, 1933. I live my life but I don't live in it. Anyone interested in the social roles of photography will find this book fascinating and thought-provoking. As everything she wrote, Susan Sontag's book on photography is brilliant. will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback. - 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. Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Identifying with her subjects, Sontag remains sensitive to the highly emotional process which is being photographed. The best criticism, and it is uncommon, is of this sort that dissolves considerations of content into those of form. What, I ask, drives me to disorder? Almost every photography student has probably read it. The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. As an artist, Sontag has no patience for consumerism. Rules of taste enforce structures of power. There would only be what is. Pop art: only possible in an affluent society, where one can be free to enjoy ironic consumption. *Art is seduction, not rape. Her book is a collection of six essays that explore photography in the deepest of manners. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. Science fiction films are not about science. It was not a question of knowledge...but of alertness, a fastidious transcription of what could be thought about something, once it swam into the stream of attention. Be clenched, curious. #Cancer #Government #Civilization “Kindness, kindness, kindness. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Stay eager. "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.". Read a lot. Collecting expresses a free-floating desire that attaches and re-attaches itself—it is a succession of desires. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. Out of photography, one can make passport pictures, weather photographs, pornographic pictures, X-rays, wedding pictures, and Atget's Paris.". Do stuff. Find summaries for every chapter, including a On Photography Chapter Summary Chart to help you understand the book. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made. By seeing oneself as the world sees one, there is a sense of loss of the hypothetical image one carries in one's head. The really important thing is not to reject anything. At the same time, these same images may desensitize the viewer who is unable to comprehend the accompanying sensations to which the image speaks. 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. Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art. this section. The Question and Answer section for On Photography is a great Out of language, one can make scientific discourse, bureaucratic memoranda, love letters, grocery lists, and Balzac's Paris. I read a few articles about photography and finally, Susan Sontag’s superb essays On Photography. The hoarding instinct in human relations. Result of self-consciousness: audience and actor are the same. As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin. 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. It is equivalent to a sense of abusing the present. A good book is an education of the heart. That image has proverbially died to the reality of external perception. The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or by duplication. The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. Quotes. 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. If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible. Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to! If not here, then there. Susan Sontag — 1964 In The Evergreen Review, Dec. ... to give more accurate reports on reality (including works of art). An editor All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. It is a set of essays on the "philosophy" of picture-taking and the meaning of photography in the modern (ca. 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. #New Year #Kindness #Prayer “Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. Except love. Depression is melancholy minus its charms. Anonymous "On Photography Quotes". I have always been full of lust - as I am now - but I have always been placing conceptual obstacles in my own path. Photography is the reality; the real object is often experienced as a letdown. 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. *Cogito ergo boom. The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own. Usually both. Writing is a much more complicated activity that that. “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. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. How can I diagnose myself? I hope they inspire you. In order to find out I’ve culled together the best quotes on the subject of photography. Her writings, essays, work, thoughts, books and novels are still very popular among the masses. In A Second Flowering (1973) and The Dream of the Golden Mountains (1980), Malcolm Cowley looked back at the writers between… Oct 3, 2018 - Susan Sontag quotes, tattoos, photos, books, and products. For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness. Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933. She felt herself needing more and more sleep. View Wikipedia Entries for On Photography…. I'm only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation. “But the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. To paraphrase several sages: 'Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time. It isn't what I feel. GradeSaver, 21 August 2019 Web. This is Sontag's assessment of the current image craze, which has only become more relevant with time. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. 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