susan sontag on photography

A Study Guide to Susan Sontag’s On Photography

by Robert R. Hall, ACKphoto, Nantucket MA, 2007

Chapter 1. In Plato’s CaveSection 1-1, p.3.Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PagePlato’s Cave (What is it?) Unregenerality 3

Insatiability 3

Section 1-2, p.5Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageWalker Evans Goddard’s Les Carabiniers (1963) Pretension 6Dorathea Lange Chris Marker (1966), Si j’avais Quatre Dromadaries (1966) Didacticism 7Ben Shahn Ubiquity 7Russell Lee Gratuitous 8David Octavius HillJulia Margaret Cameron

Section 1-3, p.8Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Dziga Vertou Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Babbittry 10Hitchcock Rear Window (1954) Voyeuristic 11

© Robert R. Hall, Nantucket Massachusetts, December 6, 2007, All Rights ReservedPermission granted to copy or duplicate this guide for non-profit use provide author is given credit.

A study guide to Sontag’s On Photography, © Robert R. Hall, 2007. of 14

Section 1-4, p.12Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageDiane Arbus Antonioni Blow Up (1966) Vertiginous 16

Atget Michael Powell Peeping Tom (1960) Reverie 16Brassai Talismanic 16

Abet 16Personae 17Nesei 17Ideology 19

Section 1-5, p.16Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageMatthew Brady Epiphany 19Felix Greene Gulag ArchipelagoMarc RiboudDon McCullin (Biafra)Werner Bischof


Brecht Faites Divers 23Mellarme Goad 24

Sentimentalism (important) 24Aesthetic 24Aesthete 24


Chapter 2. American Seen Through Photographs DarklySection 2-1, p.27Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageWalt Whitman Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1955) (The Great Cultural

Revolution)

Section 2-2, p.28Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageEdward Steichen Stieglitz magazine, Camera Work (1903-17) Lyrical 28Andy Warhol Tawdry 28Lewis Hine Paul Rosenfeld’s Essays in Port of New York (1924) Vapid 28

(referred to more than once, important) Evangel 29Polemical (important) 29Parody 29Edify 29Trancendental 31Empathy 31Concord 31Discord 31Afflatus 31


Bunuel Stichen’s Family of Man (1955) Humanism 33Coy 34

Hegelian (Refers to Hegel) Sinister 34Lartigue Tod Brownings Freaks (1932) Ominous 35

Lacerating 35Guignol 36


Section 2-4, p. 38Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageSylvia Plath Apotheosis 39

Melodrama 39Termerity 39Naïve 41

Section 2-5, p.42Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageNathanael West 1930s films: Miss Lonely Hearts, The Day of the Locust Thalidomide 42

Fellini * Goyish 43Arrabal * * Films by these directors Intractable 44Jodorowski * Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966) Gentility 44Dantesque (modal) Sensibility 44

Paul Morrissey (made films with Warhol) Exotic 45Hobbesian


WeeGee (1940’s tabloid photographer) Surreal Art (very important) 41Brassai’s La Mome Bijou (1932) Objets Trouves 41

Lewis Hine’s Mental Institution, New Jersey (1924) Dogged 41Robert Frank Auteur 46Giorgio Morandi (bottle still lifes) Pious 47

Patronize 47Atomistic 48Detritus 48Occicent 48Consolation 48Quintessential 48


Chapter 3 Melancholy ObjectsSection 3-1, p.51Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageJackson Polllock (Surrealist painter) Facile 51Man Ray Mimetic 51Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Complacent 51

Bragaglia Undialectical 51John Heartfield Agoraphobia 51Anexander Rodchenko Beaux-Arts 52

Buster Keaton in The Camera Man Trouvailles (1920s) 52Realism 52


Baudelaire Brassai’s Paris de Nuit (1933) Unconscious (Freudian) 64Paul Martin (1890s) Weegee Naked City (1945) Freud 54Arnold Genthe Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives (1890) Pathos 54

Bruce Davidson East 100th St (1970) Bourgeois 54Sir Benjamin Stone (National Photographic Record Assn. (1897) Disaffection 54Count Giuseppe Primoli John Thompson Street Life in London (1877-8) Confluence 55Jacques-Henri Lartigue John Thompson Illustrations of China & its People (1873-4) Courtiers 55

Flaneur 55Richard Avadon Picturesque 55Bill Brandt Vogue (as: in vogue) 55Henri Cartier-Bresson Complicity 59

Steichen Reverence 59Ghitta CarellCecil Beaton


Section 3-3, p.59Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageAugust Sander (1911) Sander’s Antlitz der Zeit (The faces of our time) (1934) Weimar Germany 59George Grosz Enthralled 60Lisette Model Walker Evans American Photographs (1938) Preeminently 60Eadweard Muybridge Robert Frank The American (1959) Condescension 60Roy Emerson Stryker (Farm Security Administration, 1935) (a pupil of Hine) Nihilistic 61Adam Clark Vroman (took pictures of Indians, 1895-1904) Unabashed 62


Thompson (travel reports, p.63) Partisan 63Hart Crane (1923, writes on Stieglitz) Cognate 64Henry James James’ The American Scene (1907) Token 64Jack Kerouac Consecrate 65Clarence John Laughlin (1930s) Fantasia 68Bernice Abbott Abbott’s Changing New York (1939) Patina 68

Rilke The Duino Elegies


Section 3-5, p.68Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageKurt Schwitters * Travesty 69Bruce Conner * *Surrealist artists Magnanimous 69Ed Kienholz * Anhol 69Robert Venturi (architect) (Piazza San Mario) Splenic 69Reyner Banham Voracity 69

Daguerre Chris Marker La jetere (1963) Impertinence 69William H. Fox Talbot Irony 71Bob Adelman Adelman’s Down Home (1972) Premonitory 71

Walker Evan’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Predilection 72James Agee (writer) Alaetoric 73Michael Lessy Lessy’s Wisconsin Death Trap (1973) Polemic 73Charles Van Schaick Rancorous 74John Cage Nuance 74Merle Cunningham (choreographer) Anodyne 75Sherwood Aderson (writer) Winesburg, Ohio (1919)


Section 3-6, p.75Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageWalter Benjamin (an important photograph critic) Ministrations 76Hannah Arendt (writer) Pious 76Violet Le-Duc Improver 76

Breton (surrealist) Rueful 76Borges (films) Quixotic 76Kitaj Disavowal 77Godard Disdain 77Laughlin Mongering 77

Joseph Cornell Quiddity 77Alaetoric 78Evinced 78Inveterate 78Raffish 78Portico 78Scrofulous 79Contingency 80Connoisseur 81Promiscuous (general sense) 81Suffused 81


Chapter 4 The Heroism of VisionSection 4-1, p.85Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Millet (painter) “Le beau c’est la vrai” Heroism 85Indefatigable 85

Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables Surfeited 85Zola (1903) Corny 85

Candor 86Imperative 86

Section 4-2, p.87Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageMaxime DuCamp * * photographed the orient, 1849-51 Acute (as acute observer) 88

Flaubert * Apotheosize 90Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (1844-46) Grandiose 91

Kandinsky Colossus of Abu Simbel Abstracting (act of) 91Brancusi Temel of Baalbek Didactic 93Thoreau Stieglitz photo: Fith Avenue in Winter (1893) Animate 93

Paul Strand’s photo Abstracts made by Bowls (1915) Febrile 94Moholy-Nagy’s book von material zur architecture (1928) Published by Bauhaus. English version “The New Vision”Weston photo: Cabbage Leaf (1931)

Harold Edgerton Edgerton’s photo Splash of Milk (1936)Albert Renger-

PatzschPatzsch’s Die welt ist schon (The World is Beautiful) (1928)

Turner (artist)Francis Bacon

DuChampApolinaire * (*also TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams)

TS Eliot * * poets


Section 4-3Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Blakean Edward Weston Diaries Daybooks (1930-32) Subversive 96D.H. Lawrence Weston photos of Peppers (1929-30) Vanguard 96Willaim Ivins, Jr. Weston photos Toilet Bowl Photos (1925) Agon 97

Bauhaous (p.98) Ostensibly 98Andre Kertesz Palpability 98

Carmel, California Aegis 99Aaron Siskind Solicitous 99Ansel Adams Cliché 99Andreas Feininger Feininger’s Anatomy of Nature (1965) Unctuous 101

Weston’s photo Torso of Neil (1925) Pernicious 101Strand’s photos Blind Woman, and Man Demotic 101

Helmar Lerski Lerski’s Kopfe des Alltags (Everyday Faces) (1931) Anecdote 102Avedon’s photos of his dying father (1972) Inane 102

W. Eugene Smith Smith’s Minamata (1960s) (from Japan) Pathos 102Cordelias 105

John Berger Photo of Che Guevara’s body, Bolivia, October 1967 Paroxysm 105Artaud Mantegna’s The Dead Christ Convulsive 105Wittgenstein Rembrant’s The Anomy Lesson of Professor Tula Pieta 105

Marxism Dramaturgy 105Godard & Gorin’s film A Letter to Jane (1972) Moralists 107French picture magazine L’Expres” Modishness 107

Analgesic 110Bergman Gergman’s Persona



French photomagazine Realities Appraisal 110Fellanhin 110Homologous 111Tautology 111Nullify 111Canon (of beauty) 112

Chapter 5 Photographic EvangelsSection 5-1, p. 115Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Evangel 115Aggrandize 115Parricidal 115Hortatory 115

Section 5-2, p.115Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageMinor White Ascetic 116Harry Callahan (writer) Noetic 116Henry Peach Robinson Robinson’s Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869) Paradox 116Viktor Shklovsky Avowable 117Alvin Langdon

Coburn (1918) Diffidence 117

Nicephore Niepce Recapitulate 119Anthologize 119Insolent 119Polemical 119


Avowal 119Exhortation 119Solipsistic 122Antithetical 122Intrepid 122Edifying 122Paradigm 123Effacement 123Acute 123Apotheosis 124Artisanal 124Aura 124


Wildean (idea) Artiness 127Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment (1952) Polemic 128

John Szarkowski Decorous 128Kitsch 131Vulgar 131Populist 131


Section 5-4, p.131Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageTodd Walker Grisaille 135Duane Michal Supposition 135

Eakins (male nudes) Pretext 136Picasso Anthology 138Stravinsky Depredations 140

Irving Penn Senile 144Giotto Spurious 144

Frederick Sommer Historiography 144Oscar Gustav RejlanderRobert Demachy MagnumBenno Friedman

Renger-Patzch (new Objectivity)


Valery Valery’s The Century of Photography (1929) Naturalistic 146Mario Praz Ostensibly 148

Delacroix * Parodistic 149Cristo * * Artists

Walter De MariaRobert SmithsonMarshall McLuhan Pater’s Dictum


Chapter 6 The Image WorldSection 6-1, p.153Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Feuerbach Feurbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1843) Usurp 154Holbein Desacralization 154

E.H. Gombrich Delacroix’s Journal (1850) Irrevocably 155Surrogate 155

Balzac Sublimate 161Thomas Hardy Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Section 6-2, p.161Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary PageJean Genet (1940s, prisoner in Fresnes Prison)

Proust J.G. Ballard’s Crash (1973)Hofrat Behrens Behrens’ The Magic Mountain

Melville’s PierreNabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading (1938)

Section 6-3 through 6-5, p.167-179Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page

Antonioni’s Film China Narcissic 167

Notes. Items in parentheses in the Reference column refer to the “person mentioned” to the left. Sontag did not give each section a title. Person’s Mentioned include the photographers, as well as artists and writers. Reference items are films and books, and a few other things, referred to in her text. Sontag has a large vocabulary. My selection is arbitrary. I tried to include terms that would be vaguely known by a high school graduate in the USA. Sontag uses terms precisely, so it is worth the effort to look up each term. Please pardon typing errors on this first draft. Corrections and comments accepted (email: bob at ACKphoto.com)


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