violates its subjects and turns them into objects
that can be symbolically possessed.
ThroughoutOn Photography, Sontag returns to
and expands the notion that photography has been
influential in making everything equally important,
or better, equally unimportant. In section two,
‘‘America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,’’
she traces photography’s lack of differentiation
between beauty and ugliness, importance and trivi-
ality, and draws a comparison (framed by Walt
Whitman’s conviction that beauty can also be
found in the ordinary) between the photographic
work of Edward Steichen, Pop artist Andy Warhol,
Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, and
writer Nathanael West. That the invention of
photography has promoted the value of appear-
ances and thereby changed the very idea of reality
is further explored in section four, ‘‘The Heroism
of Vision.’’ Drawing a contrast between the con-
cept of a universal or ‘‘natural’’ way of seeing and
the fact that nobody takes the same picture of the
same subject, Sontag proposes that ‘‘photographic
seeing’’ launched a new way for people to see the
world that surrounds them.
In the third section, provocatively entitled ‘‘Mel-
ancholy Objects,’’ Sontag makes a case for pho-
tography as a natively surreal art—that is, an art
that creates a duplicate world and presents a reality
that is at once more limited and more dramatic
than the real world. The photograph is surreal
because i) in capturing a time past, it is moving,
mysterious, and irrational; ii) it provides a means
for the photographer to appropriate an alien reality
by crossing spatial and social borders as well as
moral and historical ones; and iii) it is a collectible
artifact that abbreviates history, stills and distorts
time, and lends itself to montage.
On Photographyalso underlines the contradictory
notions informing photography. In ‘‘Photographic
Evangels’’ (section five), Sontag contrasts theorists
who approach photography as a lucid, precise, and
faithful recording of the real with those who con-
ceive it as an intuitive and highly subjective experi-
ence. After quickly delineating their differences,
she concludes that the two approaches are similar
in that they presuppose that photography shows
the viewer a new way of seeing reality. In the final
section, ‘‘The Image-World,’’ Sontag reworks the
contradiction between the instrumental and aes-
thetic approaches to photography to re-emphasize
how the photograph produces an experience and a
knowledge that are disassociated from the real.
Ultimately, she argues that photography is a nar-
cissistic and alienating practice that distorts reality
and displaces experience.
On Photographywas published at a time when
photography was beginning to receive attention in
such diverse disciplines as art history, American
studies, anthropology, and philosophy. Although
Sontag’s antirealist claims about the inauthenticity
of photographs were frowned upon by many
photographers who were quick to point out her
photographic amateurishness, there is little doubt
that On Photography helped introduce to pho-
tography a critical appreciation that was both
interdisciplinary and academic.
NancyPedriSee also: Image Theory: Ideology; Photographic
Theory; Photographic ‘‘Truth’’Biography
Born in New York, New York, 28 January 1933. Attended
University of California, Berkeley, 1948–1949; studied
philosophy, University of Chicago, 1949–1951; B.A.,
1951; studied English literature and philosophy at Har-
vard University, 1955–1957; M.A., English, 1956; M.A.,
Philosophy, 1957; enrolled in postgraduate studies at the
Sorbonne (Paris) and at Oxford, 1957–1959. Lecturer in
philosophy, City College of New York, 1959; instructor
in the Department of Religion, Columbia University,
New York, 1960–1964; writer-in-residence, Rutgers,- Received John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
Fellowship, 1966, 1975; American Academy Ingram
Merrill Foundation Award, 1976; National Book Critics
Circle Award, 1977; Academy of Sciences and Literature
Award, (Germany) 1979; MacArthur Foundation five-
year Fellowship, 1990, National Book Award for fiction,
2000, appointed Member of American Academy, 1979.
Lives in New York as a writer.
Further Reading
Sayres, Sohnya.Susan Sontag: The Elegiac Modernist. New
York: Routledge, 1990.
Poague, Leland, ed.Conversations with Susan Sontag. Jack-
son: University Press of Mississippi, 1995.
Kennedy, Liam.Susan Sontag: Mind as Passion. Man-
chester, U.K.: Manchester University Press; New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Rollyson, Carl, and Lisa Paddock.Susan Sontag: The Mak-
ing of an Icon. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.
Evernden, Neil. ‘‘Seeing and Being Seen: A Response to
Susan Sontag’s Essays on Photography.’’Soundings 68
(Spring 1985).SONTAG, SUSAN