A Study Guide to Susan Sontag’s On Photography

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

Chapter 1. In Plato’s Cave

Section 1-1, p.3.
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Plato’s Cave (What is it?) Unregenerality 3
Insatiability 3

Section 1-2, p.5

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Walker Evans Goddard’s Les Carabiniers (1963) Pretension 6
Dorathea Lange Chris Marker (1966), Si j’avais Quatre Dromadaries (1966) Didacticism 7
Ben Shahn Ubiquity 7
Russell Lee Gratuitous 8
David Octavius Hill
Julia Margaret Cameron

Section 1-3, p.8

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Dziga Vertou Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Babbittry 10
Hitchcock Rear Window (1954) Voyeuristic 11

© Robert R. Hall, Nantucket Massachusetts, December 6, 2007, All Rights Reserved

Permission 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. Page 1 of 14

Section 1-4, p.12
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Diane Arbus Antonioni Blow Up (1966) Vertiginous 16
Atget Michael Powell Peeping Tom (1960) Reverie 16
Brassai Talismanic 16
Abet 16
Personae 17
Nesei 17
Ideology 19

Section 1-5, p.16

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Matthew Brady Epiphany 19
Felix Greene Gulag Archipelago
Marc Riboud
Don McCullin (Biafra)
Werner Bischof

Section 1-6, p.21

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Brecht Faites Divers 23
Mellarme Goad 24
Sentimentalism (important) 24
Aesthetic 24
Aesthete 24

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

Section 2-2, p.28

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Edward Steichen Stieglitz magazine, Camera Work (1903-17) Lyrical 28
Andy Warhol Tawdry 28
Lewis Hine Paul Rosenfeld’s Essays in Port of New York (1924) Vapid 28
(referred to more than once, important) Evangel 29
Polemical (important) 29
Parody 29
Edify 29
Trancendental 31
Empathy 31
Concord 31
Discord 31
Afflatus 31

Section 2-3, p.31

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Bunuel Stichen’s Family of Man (1955) Humanism 33
Coy 34
Hegelian (Refers to Hegel) Sinister 34
Lartigue Tod Brownings Freaks (1932) Ominous 35
Lacerating 35
Guignol 36

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Section 2-4, p. 38
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Sylvia Plath Apotheosis 39
Melodrama 39
Termerity 39
Naïve 41

Section 2-5, p.42

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Nathanael West 1930s films: Miss Lonely Hearts, The Day of the Locust Thalidomide 42
Fellini * Goyish 43
Arrabal * * Films by these directors Intractable 44
Jodorowski * Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966) Gentility 44
Dantesque (modal) Sensibility 44
Paul Morrissey (made films with Warhol) Exotic 45
Hobbesian

Section 2-6, p.45

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
WeeGee (1940’s tabloid photographer) Surreal Art (very important) 41
Brassai’s La Mome Bijou (1932) Objets Trouves 41
Lewis Hine’s Mental Institution, New Jersey (1924) Dogged 41
Robert Frank Auteur 46
Giorgio Morandi (bottle still lifes) Pious 47
Patronize 47
Atomistic 48
Detritus 48
Occicent 48
Consolation 48
Quintessential 48

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Chapter 3 Melancholy Objects
Section 3-1, p.51
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Jackson Polllock (Surrealist painter) Facile 51
Man Ray Mimetic 51
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Complacent 51
Bragaglia Undialectical 51
John Heartfield Agoraphobia 51
Anexander Rodchenko Beaux-Arts 52
Buster Keaton in The Camera Man Trouvailles (1920s) 52
Realism 52

Section 3-2, p.53

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Baudelaire Brassai’s Paris de Nuit (1933) Unconscious (Freudian) 64
Paul Martin (1890s) Weegee Naked City (1945) Freud 54
Arnold Genthe Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives (1890) Pathos 54
Bruce Davidson East 100th St (1970) Bourgeois 54
Sir Benjamin Stone (National Photographic Record Assn. (1897) Disaffection 54
Count Giuseppe Primoli John Thompson Street Life in London (1877-8) Confluence 55
Jacques-Henri Lartigue John Thompson Illustrations of China & its People (1873-4) Courtiers 55
Flaneur 55
Richard Avadon Picturesque 55
Bill Brandt Vogue (as: in vogue) 55
Henri Cartier-Bresson Complicity 59
Steichen Reverence 59
Ghitta Carell
Cecil Beaton

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

Section 3-4, p.63

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

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Section 3-5, p.68
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Kurt Schwitters * Travesty 69
Bruce Conner * *Surrealist artists Magnanimous 69
Ed Kienholz * Anhol 69
Robert Venturi (architect) (Piazza San Mario) Splenic 69
Reyner Banham Voracity 69
Daguerre Chris Marker La jetere (1963) Impertinence 69
William H. Fox Talbot Irony 71
Bob Adelman Adelman’s Down Home (1972) Premonitory 71
Walker Evan’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Predilection 72
James Agee (writer) Alaetoric 73
Michael Lessy Lessy’s Wisconsin Death Trap (1973) Polemic 73
Charles Van Schaick Rancorous 74
John Cage Nuance 74
Merle Cunningham (choreographer) Anodyne 75
Sherwood Aderson (writer) Winesburg, Ohio (1919)

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Section 3-6, p.75
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Walter Benjamin (an important photograph critic) Ministrations 76
Hannah Arendt (writer) Pious 76
Violet Le-Duc Improver 76
Breton (surrealist) Rueful 76
Borges (films) Quixotic 76
Kitaj Disavowal 77
Godard Disdain 77
Laughlin Mongering 77
Joseph Cornell Quiddity 77
Alaetoric 78
Evinced 78
Inveterate 78
Raffish 78
Portico 78
Scrofulous 79
Contingency 80
Connoisseur 81
Promiscuous (general sense) 81
Suffused 81

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Chapter 4 The Heroism of Vision
Section 4-1, p.85
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Millet (painter) “Le beau c’est la vrai” Heroism 85
Indefatigable 85
Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables Surfeited 85
Zola (1903) Corny 85
Candor 86
Imperative 86

Section 4-2, p.87

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Maxime DuCamp * * photographed the orient, 1849-51 Acute (as acute observer) 88
Flaubert * Apotheosize 90
Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (1844-46) Grandiose 91
Kandinsky Colossus of Abu Simbel Abstracting (act of) 91
Brancusi Temel of Baalbek Didactic 93
Thoreau Stieglitz photo: Fith Avenue in Winter (1893) Animate 93
Paul Strand’s photo Abstracts made by Bowls (1915) Febrile 94
Moholy-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- Patzsch’s Die welt ist schon (The World is Beautiful) (1928)
Patzsch
Turner (artist)
Francis Bacon
DuChamp
Apolinaire * (*also TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams)
TS Eliot * * poets

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Section 4-3
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Blakean Edward Weston Diaries Daybooks (1930-32) Subversive 96
D.H. Lawrence Weston photos of Peppers (1929-30) Vanguard 96
Willaim Ivins, Jr. Weston photos Toilet Bowl Photos (1925) Agon 97
Bauhaous (p.98) Ostensibly 98
Andre Kertesz Palpability 98
Carmel, California Aegis 99
Aaron Siskind Solicitous 99
Ansel Adams Cliché 99
Andreas Feininger Feininger’s Anatomy of Nature (1965) Unctuous 101
Weston’s photo Torso of Neil (1925) Pernicious 101
Strand’s photos Blind Woman, and Man Demotic 101
Helmar Lerski Lerski’s Kopfe des Alltags (Everyday Faces) (1931) Anecdote 102
Avedon’s photos of his dying father (1972) Inane 102
W. Eugene Smith Smith’s Minamata (1960s) (from Japan) Pathos 102
Cordelias 105
John Berger Photo of Che Guevara’s body, Bolivia, October 1967 Paroxysm 105
Artaud Mantegna’s The Dead Christ Convulsive 105
Wittgenstein Rembrant’s The Anomy Lesson of Professor Tula Pieta 105
Marxism Dramaturgy 105
Godard & Gorin’s film A Letter to Jane (1972) Moralists 107
French picture magazine L’Expres” Modishness 107
Analgesic 110
Bergman Gergman’s Persona

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Section 4-4, p.110
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
French photomagazine Realities Appraisal 110
Fellanhin 110
Homologous 111
Tautology 111
Nullify 111
Canon (of beauty) 112

Chapter 5 Photographic Evangels

Section 5-1, p. 115
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Evangel 115
Aggrandize 115
Parricidal 115
Hortatory 115

Section 5-2, p.115

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Minor White Ascetic 116
Harry Callahan (writer) Noetic 116
Henry Peach Robinson Robinson’s Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869) Paradox 116
Viktor Shklovsky Avowable 117
Alvin Coburn (1918) Diffidence 117
Langdon
Nicephore Niepce Recapitulate 119
Anthologize 119
Insolent 119
Polemical 119

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

Section 5-3, p.126

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Wildean (idea) Artiness 127
Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment (1952) Polemic 128
John Szarkowski Decorous 128
Kitsch 131
Vulgar 131
Populist 131

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Section 5-4, p.131
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Todd Walker Grisaille 135
Duane Michal Supposition 135
Eakins (male nudes) Pretext 136
Picasso Anthology 138
Stravinsky Depredations 140
Irving Penn Senile 144
Giotto Spurious 144
Frederick Sommer Historiography 144
Oscar Gustav Rejlander
Robert Demachy Magnum
Benno Friedman
Renger-Patzch (new Objectivity)

Section 5-5, p.144

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Valery Valery’s The Century of Photography (1929) Naturalistic 146
Mario Praz Ostensibly 148
Delacroix * Parodistic 149
Cristo * * Artists
Walter De Maria
Robert Smithson
Marshall McLuhan Pater’s Dictum

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Chapter 6 The Image World
Section 6-1, p.153
Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Feuerbach Feurbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1843) Usurp 154
Holbein Desacralization 154
E.H. Gombrich Delacroix’s Journal (1850) Irrevocably 155
Surrogate 155
Balzac Sublimate 161
Thomas Hardy Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Section 6-2, p.161

Person Mentioned Reference Vocabulary Page
Jean Genet (1940s, prisoner in Fresnes Prison)
Proust J.G. Ballard’s Crash (1973)
Hofrat Behrens Behrens’ The Magic Mountain
Melville’s Pierre
Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading (1938)

Section 6-3 through 6-5, p.167-179

Person 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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