Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (1964)

None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew (or thought one knew) what it did.  From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.  We can only quarrel with one or another means of defending and justifying art which becomes particularly obtuse or onerous or insensitive to contemporary needs and practice.