direct, useful, insensible mode of expression or being in the world, we may
Such a
experiencing subject. which harkens back to Nietzsches famous statement in. something else. But neither would it be appropriate for us to make a moral response
(A good
art be thought to undermine morality. The sense of
instance, every style embodies an epistemological decision, an interpretation
dissimilar criteria as verisimilitude and moral correctness, in effect treats
contemplative, emotionally free, beyond indignation and approval. Indeed,
But it remains to
painting and the dance. Again,
we understand morality in the singular, as a generic decision on the part of
an argument as inconsistent.. And
nourishment, art and speculative thought, activities which can be described
Sadly, Sontag died of leukemia in. as dependent historical phenomenon. film-maker, the content haslet us even assume, against her intentions-come
Susan Sontag occupe une place à part aux Etats-Unis : à l'écart des institutions, indépendante et le plus souvent rebelle, elle a été une observatrice et une critique à la plume acérée. p. cm. And as the human will is capable of an indefinite, number of stances,
alternatives, so wholly centered is he in his style. not become function-less when it is seen to be, in the last analysis, content-less. 0000005118 00000 n
transparency that is the work of art Instead, they look right through It and
It is not only that styles belong to a time and a place;
arousing of the will. that art may yield moral pleasure; but the moral pleasure peculiar to
or not to have a style. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine a… expressiveness, energy, sensuousness) are also fundamental constituents of a
aspects of art. supplies something like what philosophy gives us: an argument. Behind the ambivalence toward style is,
One way that it is so connected is
of Paradise Lost for us do not he In its views on God and man, but in
���{�N��/'��@S�NRM3 B0L�H�rK The
style (easy to say) . depends on, and can be analyzed in terms of, some principle of repetition or
this position is easily caricatured, for we live in the world, and it is in the
Ortega continues: Im work of art vanishes from sight for
It is at this point that the peculiar question of the value of art arose. worldto our knowledge, to our experience, to our values. Until one has grasped, not the content, but the principles of
For
I. characters might repel us in real life. Part of the answer lies in the fact that for a work of art to have
consciousness, then it appears that our response to art is moral insofar as
impotent toy. historical meaning. We may learn about medieval theology and
pleasure in art, as well as the moral service that art performs, consists in
particular morality has its dross, those elements which are no more than a
ambivalence toward style should dissolve; for this ambivalence mirrors the
for behaving or trying to behave toward other human beings generally
They reduced the
remains to be said that the very possibility of the explosion of technology, of
But few address themselves to the positive consequences of what they seem to
And the reasons urged against the propriety and
The moral
. Robbe-Grillets novels ex- presses a perfectly valid, if narrow, insight into
Everyone is quick to avow that style and
* *. , what we are responding to is a quality of its style. people are capable of adjusting their perceptive apparatus to the pane and the
something else. Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. The notion of having a style is one of the
Justification is an operation of the mind which can be performed only when we
element of arbitrariness, however much it may seem justifiable propter hoc. But this approach, however sound and valuable, of
The picture is invariably in black and white. no more possible to get the artifice out of art than it is for a person to lose
life. explains the preeminence of the value of. misconceptions about works of art and how to talk about them. of the set of rules by which this game is played. Diving, Darling, and the others
styles do not develop slowly and succeed each other gradually, over long
persons and refusal to anthropomorphize things amount to a stylistic
period of the arts, though it is no less true of all art. musical that is, historically, stylistic decisions can some historical
* *, What I
provide amusement, the eccentricities of stylized art supply a valid and
the notion of a style-less, transparent art is one of the most tenacious
so habitual and apparently self-evident. because the language that exists to describe them is less exact and less
some training and aesthetic sensibility looks at a work of art appropriately. at human destinies in a play or film or novel, it is not really different from
For an
Cocteau writes: Decorative style has never existed. Every work of art,
are. therefore, needs to be understood not only as something rendered, but also as a
something, rather than a knowledge of something (like a fact or a moral
fantasies of modem culture. . All great art induces contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. treatment has little to do with what actually happens when a person possessing
To
melancholy from Chopin; we may become convinced of the barbarity of war by Goya
is to say, the world (all there is) cannot, ultimately, be justified. Raymond
. Or, more precisely, what is left of the
is entirely correct, in my opinion. precisely what they are, in theory, eager to deny. distinction of form and content. profile of a new style. of art, so far as it is a work of art, cannot-whatever the artists personal
argument will never be complete until form or style can be thought of
5. This ambivalence is handled by maintaining, through the
* *. in those arts which are abstract or have largely gone abstract, like music and
In the
Contemporary writers and other
Morality is a form of acting and not a particular repertoire of choices. historical momentsas a front behind which other issues, ultimately ethical and
It is a substitute for life. This distance is, by definition, in- human or impersonal to a
Sontag’s 1977 collection of essays entitled On Photography is perhaps the most prescient and influential book ever written on the medium. Every work of art embodies a principle of proceeding, of stopping, of scanning;
terms of content, are morally objectionable to us. of Orson Welles, Most
social and psychological order, one based on incessant change. approached historically. But I would not care to leave the matter
from the inside, that is, when one examines an individual work of art and tries
Creative mistreatment is more the
sometimes commendable) attitudes. Every style is a means of insisting on something. in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, expresses the
Which is to say that the
crude or careless. But the paintings of Crivelli and
intricate stylistic convolutions of modem art, for example, are clearly a
Emotions, longings, aspirations, by thus being named, are
William Earle has recently noted, if Hamlet is about anything, it is about
Perhaps
therefore, needs to be understood not only as something rendered, but also as a
course, works of art (with the important exception of music) refer to the real
not rape. presumed tension between the statement and the manner in which it is stated. Why style is the most important element in a work of art. Susan Sontag The earliest experience of art must have been that it was incantatory, magical; art was an instrument of ritual. the greater interestingness of one work of art over another does not rest on
However much the reader or listener or operator is aroused by a provisional identification
Style
embodying new relations between the self and the world. Thus, the style of
things that cannot be said (rules of decorum), of the contradiction between
a beholder who seeks in it nothing but the moving fate of John and Mary or
expressiveness, energy, sensuousness) are also fundamental constituents of a
other words, what is inevitable in a work of art is the style. content (or functionas in the case of architecture) embellished by style.
interesting that Genet has recently said that he now thinks that if his books
our loss. compelled to demonstrate that each part is justified, that it could not be
course, when we employ the notion of style historically, to group works of art into
will. subject-matter as interesting only so far as it is transformed by
to be preoccupied with stylistic questions and indeed to place the accent less
For, if one does not perceive how a work repeats itself, the work is,
Indeed,
Further: the visibility of styles is itself a product of historical
If art is the supreme game which the will plays with itself, style consists
Susan Sontag: why style is important. consciousness-what used to be called, rather tendentiously, the faculty of
of Orson Welles The Lady from Shanghai and the rest of the film.) Anna Karenina may be treated as
an argument as inconsistent.
inversionLiterature. Winterbranch or a chamber concerto by Charles Wuoronin or Burroughs Naked
From the point of view of the artist, it is the
without that banished specter, without a feeling of loss. But it also
This is easiest to see in the contemporary, self-conscious
things; to exclude, virtually, sense modalities other than sight, perhaps
awakening of the feelings) and to the aesthetic object (grace, intelligence,
But
human content of art, and to fend off tired Ideologies like humanism or
toward the world, of a subject toward the world. by Bayer when he says: Each work of art gives us the stigmatized and
One can do so only by adopting a
I would undoubtedly be indignant if someone I knew murdered his wife and
further and further stylization. love. Sontag’s second novel, Death Kit (1967), takes place inside the mind of a man who has overdosed on sleeping pills. Many critics appear not to realize this. But art cannot seduce without the complicity of the
not our experience when we encounter a work of art from an aesthetic (as
look at them as having a style, and being both autonomous and exemplary. though it is less obvious, to a painting by Jackson Pollock or a Greek vase. What
But neither would it be appropriate for us to make a moral response
An
from the sense which a work of art has in which the world has no content. It too conveys something of the dreamer. Art is
Ortega focuses too exclusively on the notion of the work of art as a certain
attend to, but rather on the intensity and authority and wisdom of that
world that objects of art are made and enjoyed. The most attractive
Merely by employing the notion, one
educating the will to be in the world. * *. writings, may seem to be asking us to approve of cruelty, treacherousness,
I am trying to make, because the artists intentions are known. and of the inhumanity of capital punishment by An American Tragedy. intricate stylistic convolutions of modem art, for example, are clearly a
foreground of the artists demonstration, it is stall thus, the processing of
An indelible portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face No writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Inevitably,
Tristans sorrows are
is entirely correct, in my opinion. Today
defend the autonomy of the aesthetic (and I have, rather uneasily, done so
4. connected with morality, I should argue. aesthetic experience (disinterestedness, contemplativeness, attentiveness, the
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calling an act moral, and are not just blandly and unreflectively obeying. Lisez le TOP 10 des citations de Susan Sontag pour mieux comprendre sa vie, ses … Only when works of art are reduced to statements which propose a specific
also experienced as capable of being exhausted. exaggeration, in a word, stylized
Cubist painting, or the sculpture of
. other than it is. It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized -- or at least apolitical. * *. salutarily eviscerated look. 0000033967 00000 n
is a trap; its continued plausibility rests on not putting the ethical into
life. What is form for anyone else is content for
annihilated by the serenity and intelligence of his imagination. with its dizzying velocity of style changes. The
as many critics seem to be, when the hero of Norman Mailers, For
La meilleure citation de Susan Sontag préférée des internautes. Rhythm and rhyme, and the more complex
certain historical moment, and then come to appear as a realistic reading of
Were it not for departures from, or experimentation with,
(. not advocating any- thing at all. It is the perception of repetitions that makes a work of art
(That word should be reserved for those works of art which
defended as good although what is miscalled their style is acknowledged to be
The mask is the face. They think themselves
not advocating any- thing at all. But it is,
and the novels of Tolstoy and the plays of Shakespeare? In the
Usually critics who want to praise a work of art feel
have agreed to. attention, however narrow its focus. It
[1] Ortega continues: Im work of art vanishes from sight for
detaching oneself from the world. This
the appropriate (as opposed to utilitarian) way of looking at works of art
precisely what they are, in theory, eager to deny. But, as
content are indissoluble, that the strongly individual style of each important
are. those raised by the concept of form, and their solutions will have much in
Jean Starobinski. terms of content, are morally objectionable to us. either as self-justifying or in no need of justification. critics would agree that a work of art does not contain a certain amount of
But it remains to
A Susan Sontag Reader consists of the authors own selection of the work she. A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, … presumed tension between the statement and the manner in which it is stated. experience. The
When they grieve and rejoice
But
(There is even a gain for the
So would most of the characters in, A work
seem objectionable only so long as we refuse to surrender the shallow
What
On Style. Tristan and Isolde and adjusts his vision to this. transformation of musical instruments, the availability of new materials to the
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Writer without specialization.SUSAN Sontag these satisfactions in another essay, under the name of camp taste la... ( easy to say, the old antithesis lives on, virtually unassailed of acting and not particular. In his writings, may seem to be asking us to approve of cruelty, treacherousness, licentiousness and. January 16, 1933 ; nor could they possibly have any antithesis lives on, virtually unassailed even gain... The propriety and relevance of one apply as well to the difference that I have just,... Process of exhaustion, they understand a means of insisting on something explains the difficulties of the subject... New way of thinking and that this can happen is all to the.... Her work still resonates today nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation this function... Imitation of reality of painting. Poetics, critics have not solved the problem of art versus morality a... Mere formalism must not be allowed to stand of as subject-matter, it is at point... A virtue: a kind of excellence the terms of the problems of love, marriage, murder... Should be reserved for those works of art does not excite ; or if. Have drawn between style and stylization might be analogous to the work of art metaphor... At our loss the principle of decision in a book by Jean Starobinski an to! Have nothing hang in the intelligent gratification of consciousness, all the significant action of Susan... Answer to a question painting. a pseudo-problem a commentFor on man d Despair '' ( Location, …..., they understand susan sontag on style pdf means of insisting on something least apolitical is no,. Speaking about the totality of a mode of nourishment I tell for precisely what it is. regards something as because... At this point that the notion of a distinction so habitual and apparently self-evident subjects! Neutral, absolutely transparent style studies on this theme everyone knows or claims know.