"The Origin of the Work of Art" (german: Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes) is an essay by the German philosopher

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

. Heidegger drafted the text between 1935 and 1937, reworking it for publication in 1950 and again in 1960. Heidegger based his essay on a series of lectures he had previously delivered in Zurich and Frankfurt during the 1930s, first on the essence of the work of art and then on the question of the meaning of a "thing", marking the philosopher's first lectures on the notion of art.

Content

In "The Origin of the Work of Art" Heidegger explains the essence of art in terms of the concepts of being and truth. He argues that art is not only a way of expressing the element of truth in a culture, but the means of creating it and providing a springboard from which "that which is" can be revealed. Works of art are not merely representations of the way things are, but actually produce a community's shared understanding. Each time a new artwork is added to any culture, the meaning of what it is to exist is inherently changed. Heidegger begins his essay with the question of what the source of a work of art is. The artwork and the artist, he explains, exist in a dynamic where each appears to be a provider of the other. "Neither is without the other. Nevertheless, neither is the sole support of the other." Art, a concept separate from both work and creator, thus exists as the source for them both. Rather than control lying with the artist, art becomes a force that uses the creator for art's own purposes. Likewise, the resulting work must be considered in the context of the world in which it exists, not that of its artist. In discovering the essence, however, the problem of the

hermeneutic circle The hermeneutic circle (german: hermeneutischer Zirkel) describes the process of understanding a text Hermeneutics, hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individua ...

arises. In sum, the hermeneutic circle raises the paradox that, in any work, without understanding the whole, you can’t fully comprehend the individual parts, but without understanding the parts, you cannot comprehend the whole. Applied to art and artwork, we find that without knowledge of the essence of art, we cannot grasp the essence of the artwork, but without knowledge of the artwork, we cannot find the essence of art. Heidegger concludes that to take hold of this circle you either have to define the essence of art or of the artwork, and, as the artwork is simpler, we should start there. Artworks, Heidegger contends, are things, a definition that raises the question of the meaning of a "thing", such that works have a thingly character. This is a broad concept, so Heidegger chooses to focus on three dominant interpretations of things: # Things as substances with properties, or as bearers of traits. # Things as the manifold of sense perceptions. # Things as formed matter. The third interpretation is the most dominant (extended to all beings), but is derived from equipment: "This long familiar mode of thought preconceives all immediate experience of beings. The preconception shackles reflection on the Being of any given being." The reason Heidegger selects a pair of peasant shoes painted by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

is to establish a distinction between artwork and other "things", such as pieces of equipment, as well as to open up experience through phenomenological description. This was actually typical of Heidegger as he often chose to study shoes and shoe maker shops as an example for the analysis of a culture. Heidegger explains the viewer's responsibility to consider the variety of questions about the shoes, asking not only about form and matter—what are the shoes made of?—but bestowing the piece with life by asking of purpose—what are the shoes for? What world do they open up and belong to? In this way we can get beyond correspondence theories of truth which posit truth as the correspondence of representations (form) to reality (matter). Next, Heidegger writes of art's ability to set up an active struggle between "Earth" and "World". "World" represents meaning which is disclosed, not merely the sum of all that is

ready-to-hand Martin Heidegger, the 20th-century German philosopher, produced a large body of work that intended a profound change of direction for philosophy. Such was the depth of change that he found it necessary to introduce many neologisms, often connected ...

for one being but rather the web of significant relations in which

Dasein ''Dasein'' () (sometimes spelled as Da-sein) is the German word for 'existence'. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger uses the expression ''Dasein'' to refer to the experience of being that is p ...

, or human being(s), exist (a table, for example, as part of the web of signification, points to those who customarily sit at it, the conversations once had around it, the carpenter who made it, and so on - all of which point to further and further things). So a family unit could be a world, or a career path could be a world, or even a large community or nation. "Earth" means something like the background against which every meaningful "worlding" emerges. It is outside (unintelligible to) the

. Both are necessary components for an artwork to function, each serving unique purposes. The artwork is inherently an object of "world", as it creates a world of its own; it opens up for us other worlds and cultures, such as worlds from the past like the ancient Greek or medieval worlds, or different social worlds, like the world of the peasant, or of the aristocrat. However, the very nature of art itself appeals to "Earth", as a function of art is to highlight the natural materials used to create it, such as the colors of the paint, the density of the language, or the texture of the stone, as well as the fact that everywhere an implicit background is necessary for every significant explicit representation. In this way, "World" is revealing the unintelligibility of "Earth", and so admits its dependence on the natural "Earth". This reminds us that concealment (hiddenness) is the necessary precondition for unconcealment (

aletheia ''Aletheia'' or Alethia (; grc, ἀλήθεια) is truth or disclosure in philosophy. Originating in Ancient Greek philosophy, the term was later used in the works of 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although often translated as " ...

), i.e. truth. The existence of truth is a product of this struggle—the process of art—taking place within the artwork. Heidegger uses the example of a Greek temple to illustrate his conception of world and earth. Such works as the temple help in capturing this essence of art as they go through a transition from artworks to art objects depending on the status of their world. Once the culture has changed, the temple no longer is able to actively engage with its surroundings and becomes passive—an art object. He holds that a working artwork is crucial to a community and so must be able to be understood. Yet, as soon as meaning is pinned down and the work no longer offers resistance to rationalization, the engagement is over and it is no longer active. While the notion appears contradictory, Heidegger is the first to admit that he was confronting a riddle—one that he did not intend to answer as much as to describe in regard to the meaning of art.

Influence and criticism

The main influence on Heidegger's conception of art was

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

. In Nietzsche's '' The Will to Power'', Heidegger struggled with his notions about the dynamic of truth and art. Nietzsche contends that art is superior to truth, something Heidegger eventually disagrees with not because of the ordered relationship Nietzsche puts forth but because of the philosopher's definition of truth itself, one he claims is overly traditional. Heidegger, instead, questioned traditional artistic methods. His criticism of museums, for instance, has been widely noted. Critics of Heidegger claim that he employs circuitous arguments and often avoids logical reasoning under the ploy that this is better for finding truth. (In fact, Heidegger is employing a revised version of the phenomenological method; see the

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

argued that the Van Gogh boots discussed are not really peasant boots but those of Van Gogh himself, a detail that would undermine Heidegger's reading. During the 1930s mentions of ''soil'' carried connotations which are lost for later readers (see Blood and Soil). Problems with both Heidegger and Schapiro's texts are further discussed in

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

's ''Restitutions - On Truth to Size''Derrida J., (1978), ''The Truth In Painting'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. and in the writing of

Babette Babich Babette E. Babich (born 14 November 1956, in New York City) is an American philosopher who writes from a continental perspective on aesthetics, philosophy of science and technology in addition to critical and cultural theory. Career Including r ...

. A recent refutation of Schapiro's critique has been given by

Iain Thomson Iain D. Thomson (born 1968) is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He is a well-known expert on Martin Heidegger. Education and career Thomson studied as an undergraduate at the University ...

(2011). Heidegger's notions about art have made a relevant contribution to discussions on artistic truth. Heidegger's reflections in this regard also affected architectural thinking, especially in terms of reflections on the question of dwelling. Refer to the influential work in architectural phenomenology of:

Christian Norberg-Schulz Christian Norberg-Schulz (23 May 1926 – 28 March 2000) was a Norwegian architect, author, educator and architectural theorist. Norberg-Schulz was part of the Modernist Movement in architecture and associated with architectural phenomenology. B ...

, ''Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture'' (New York: Rizzoli, 1980); and see also a recent treatment of the question of dwelling in:

Nader El-Bizri Nader El-Bizri ( ar, نادر البزري, ''nādir al-bizrĩ'') is the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Sharjah. He served before as a tenured longstanding full Professor of philosophy and civ ...

, 'On Dwelling: Heideggerian Allusions to Architectural Phenomenology', ''Studia UBB. Philosophia'', Vol. 60, No. 1 (2015): 5-30. Historian and political scientist

Richard Wolin Richard Wolin (born 1952) is an American intellectual historian who writes on 20th Century European philosophy, particularly German philosopher Martin Heidegger and the group of thinkers known collectively as the Frankfurt School. Life Wolin gr ...

engaged with Heideggerian affinities for the absolute in a

pre-Socratic Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...

unity of opposites The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense.

, artist "state founding," poet-legislators, the ''Herrenvolk'' as metaphysical peoples, and concealment vis-à-vis "truth in its nature is untruth" in ''Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology'' (2023).

Editions

*Heidegger, Martin. ''Off the Beaten Track'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Translation of ''Holzwege'' (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1950), volume 5 in Heidegger's '' Gesamtausgabe''. *

Notes

References

External links

Thomson, Iain, "Heidegger's Aesthetics"
''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ''(Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Origin of the Work of Art, The 1950 non-fiction books 20th-century philosophy Aesthetics books Books by Martin Heidegger German non-fiction books Books of lectures 1930s in philosophy Philosophy lectures