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.
More Quotes from Susan Sontag:
The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. . . . The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration . . . because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.Susan Sontag
Taste has no system and no proofs.
Susan Sontag
It is not the position, but the disposition.
Susan Sontag
As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.
Susan Sontag
All. . . forms of consensus about great books and perennial problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of what is already known.
Susan Sontag
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Based on Topics: Art Quotes, Work & Career QuotesBased on Keywords: interpreting, philistine, tames
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