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.
Susan SontagRead
Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Susan SontagRead
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
Susan SontagRead
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.
Susan SontagRead
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
Similar quotes
What I'm always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of campfires and fireplaces - the ghost stories that engaged us.
Chuck PalahniukRead
A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
Federico FelliniRead
One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.
Michael OndaatjeRead
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
Martha GrahamRead
The modern artist... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.
Jackson PollockRead
Every great film should seem new every time you see it.
Roger EbertRead