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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.
Susan Sontag
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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

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.
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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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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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