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
Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists should create naturally rather than forcing social commentary into their work.
Susan Sontag emphasizes that art should stem from genuine inspiration rather than an obligation to comment on social issues. While social conditions can influence an artist, authentic expression cannot be forced, suggesting that true art emerges from personal experience and engagement with the world.
Themes
ArtSocialCommentaryCreativityExpression
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in an art class to discuss the role of societal influences on creativity.
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.
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When I was a child, I used to paint intently. The older I become, and the closer death approaches, the brighter my life gets day by day.
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I can't say what people use the experience of listening to songs for, but I would never tell somebody what it is supposed to mean. That defeats the purpose of making it. Hopefully, whoever connects with it connects with it in their own way, and it can mean whatever it is supposed to mean to them.
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