On Photography

On Photography
Name	On Photography
Author	Susan Sontag
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Photography, Art criticism
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub date	1977
Media type	Print
Pages	192
Isbn	0-374-24674-5

On Photography

Susan Sontag's On Photography is a 1977 collection of essays examining the aesthetics, ethics, and social functions of photographic images. The book interrogates relationships among spectators, New York City, museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, photographic technologies, and political events like the Vietnam War, arguing that photographs shape perception of reality. Sontag's prose engages figures from Roland Barthes to Giorgio Agamben and institutions including the National Gallery of Art and Life.

Summary and Themes

Sontag argues that the proliferation of images in Paris and New York City has altered ethical responses to suffering portrayed in Vietnam War coverage and to portraits in publications like Life and Look. She explores voyeurism represented in works by photographers exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and discussed in essays by Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin. The text links modernist aesthetics of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston with wartime photography by Atget-era figures and photojournalists such as W. Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier-Bresson, considering influences from institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the International Center of Photography. Sontag treats images from events like the Chilean coup and the Nazi Holocaust alongside portraits made for magazines such as Life and shows at galleries including the Tate Modern.

Historical Context and Publication

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1977, the book emerged amid debates sparked by images of the Vietnam War, the unfolding of the Watergate scandal, and shifting displays at venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art. Sontag, who had written for periodicals including The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review, distilled essays that had appeared in outlets such as Partisan Review and The Village Voice. Her arguments intersected with scholarship by Roland Barthes, critiques circulated at conferences hosted by institutions like Columbia University and Harvard University, and contemporary exhibitions at places including the International Center of Photography.

Structure and Content

Organized as a sequence of essays, the book moves from reflections on the ontology of images—engaging thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes—to case studies of photographers like Diane Arbus, André Kertész, Robert Capa, and Walker Evans. Sontag references journalistic outlets Life, Look, and photographers associated with agencies like Magnum Photos. She analyzes iconic photographs from events such as the Spanish Civil War and the Vietnam War, and she situates studio photographers alongside practitioners exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and sold through galleries in Los Angeles and New York City. The prose connects theoretical interventions by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben to visual practices seen in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Critical Reception and Influence

Contemporaneous reviews in publications like The New York Times and The New Yorker produced debate among critics including John Berger and scholars working at Oxford University and Cambridge University. The book influenced curators at institutions such as the Tate Modern, MoMA, and the International Center of Photography, and it shaped courses at universities including Columbia University and New York University. Some photographers—exhibited by agencies like Magnum Photos or represented by galleries in Paris and New York City—reacted against Sontag's contention that photography is complicit in aestheticizing suffering; academics at Harvard University and Yale University debated her claims alongside scholarship by Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin.

Key Concepts and Quotations

Sontag introduces concepts that entered critical discourse alongside ideas from Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin: the photograph as "evidence," the consumerist circulation of images via Life and Look, and the ethical implications of images from conflicts like the Vietnam War and the Chilean coup. Quotations often cited appeared in academic syllabi at Columbia University and in manifestos presented at conferences hosted by New York University and Harvard University. She interrogates the roles of photo agencies such as Magnum Photos and publications like The New Yorker in shaping public attention to crises including the Nazi Holocaust and the Spanish Civil War.

Legacy and Cultural Impact

The book shaped museum programming at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the International Center of Photography and influenced later writers such as John Berger, Roland Barthes, and critics teaching at Yale University and Oxford University. Its themes reappear in exhibitions about photojournalism at the National Gallery of Art and in retrospectives of figures like Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Capa. Debates Sontag sparked continue in discussions in journals like The New York Review of Books and in classroom syllabi at Columbia University and New York University.

Category:Books about photography Category:1977 books