Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself โ these can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation.
Susan SontagAny photograph has multiple meanings: indeed, to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of fascination. The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: โThere is the surface. Now think โ or rather feel, intuit โ what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.โ Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy
Susan SontagI don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.
Susan SontagThe work of art itself is . . . a vibrant, magical, and exemplary object which returns us to the world in some way more open and enriched.
Susan Sontag