Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past.
Susan SontagRead
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art should evoke emotion and remain open to interpretation, rather than being overly analyzed.
Susan Sontag's quote emphasizes that real art has the power to provoke feelings and thoughts that can be uncomfortable or challenging. By over-analyzing or trying to simplify art into its content, we risk diminishing its impact and reducing its complexity, ultimately rendering it more controllable and less profound.
Themes
ArtInterpretationEmotionsCreativityAnalyzePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in an art critique to emphasize the importance of emotional responses over academic analysis.
More from Susan Sontag
All quotes →Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
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Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
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Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
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In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed.
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It hurts to love. 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 SontagRead
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