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ainda só li o primeiro capítulo e já estou deprimida 🤠

“the feeling of being exempt from calamity stimulates interest in looking at painful pictures, and looking at them suggests and strengthens the feeling that one is exempt . partly it is because one is “here”, not “there”, and partly it is the character of inevitability that all events acquire when they are transmuted into images.”

“while many people in non-industrialised countries still feel apprehensive when being photographed, divining it to be some kind of trespass, an act of disrespect, a sublimated looting of the personality or the culture, people in industrialised countries seek to have their photographs taken - feel that they are images, and are made real by photographs.”

“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. like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made.”

“but whether or not one can live with one’s passions, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt, that is the whole question.”

“because nature has ceased to be what it always had been - what people needed protection from. now nature - tamed, endangered, mortal - needs to be protected from people. when we are afraid, we shoot. but when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.”

susan sontag i love you

third time starting this book!! have been reading it consistently for over a week, it’s finally happening 😌

ready to cry 🤪

“art is seduction, not rape.”

“in almost every case, our manner of appearing is our manner of being. the mask is the face.”

“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.”

“in a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. even more. it is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. to interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of “meanings”. it is to turn the world into this world.”

“in some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. it is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. in other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.”

“lie or no, art has a certain value according to aristotle because it is a form of therapy. (…) it arouses and purges dangerous emotions.”

“for me, the essays have done their work. i see the world differently, with fresher eyes”

“i have come to disbelieve some of these same ideas again - but from a new perspective, one that incorporates and is nourished by what is true in the argument of the essays. writing criticism has proved to be an act of intellectual disburdenment as much as of intellectual self-expression.”

“the surroundings here are beginning to weigh me down more than i can say - heavens above, i’ve been patient for more than a year - i need some air, i feel overwhelmed by boredom and grief.”

“i like to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life - artificial, if you like. yes, real life would be something else, but i don’t think i belong to that category of souls who are ready to live, and also ready to suffer, at any moment.”

“to express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colours, their blending and their contrast, the mysterious vibrations of related tones. to express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. to express hope by some star. someone’s passion by the radiance of the setting sun.”

“and yet be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. then life seems almost enchanted after all. ah, those who don’t believe in the sun here are quite godless.”

“is it a renaissance? is it a decline? we cannot judge, because we are too close to it not to be deceived by distorted perspectives. contemporary events, our setbacks and successes, probably assume exaggerated proportions in our eyes.”

“that mental exhaustion of mine is disappearing, i no longer feel so much need for diversion, i am less plagued by passions, and am able to work more calmly. i could be alone without getting bored. i have come out of this feeling a little older, but no sadder.”

“for what is really wretched is loneliness, worries, problems, and the unfulfilled need for kindness and sympathy.”

“when one has fire within and a soul, one cannot keep bottling them up - better to burn than to burst, what is in will out.”

“i don’t want to be included among the melancholy or those who turn sour and bitter and bilious. “tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner”, and i believe that if we knew everything we should attain some serenity.”

“i can’t foretell the future, theo - but i do know the eternal law that all things change. (…) but what one does remains - and one does not easily regret having done it. the more active one is, the better, and i would sooner have a failure than sit idle and do nothing.”

“there needs to be more gusto in my life if i am to get more brio into my brush - exercising patience will not get me a hair’s breadth further.”

“how does one become mediocre? by complying with and conforming to one thing today and another tomorrow, as the world dictates, by never contradicting the world and by heeding public opinion.”

“it seems to me that there was definitely something warmer and more lighthearted and alive about those days than there is today. but i cannot be certain, and there is much good nowadays, or there could be much more than in fact there is if there were greater solidarity.”

“i thought i would be understood without words.”