In his essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art,' Heidegger noticed that all artworks have a thingly character to
them. But it is also obvious that art is something more than simply just a thing. Heidegger insists that artworks are different
from useful equipment-type objects because artworks "in setting up a world, sets forth the earth." In his attempt
to find the essence of being, Heidegger focused on clarifying language and uses terms, such as earth and world, in an idiosyncratic
manner that often tend to be much more complex than their typical, everyday usage. The earth and world are intricate terms
in Heidegger's vocabulary but, basically, the world refers roughly to the history of mankind, while the earth represents what
we normally refer to as nature. Accordingly, these two realms are forever conflicted in essential strife.
Works of art have a special place in this strife between the earth and world because art belongs to both
of these realms simultaneously. Art is not like the rock or plants of the earth but it is also not exactly like the "equpiment-type"
things associated with the world. Art is a crossroads where the earth and world share a symbiotic relationship and "When
art works disclose entities, they bring the meeting of earth and world to our attention." To demonstrate this point,
Heidegger uses a Greek temple and Van Gogh's painting of shoes as his main examples. The world is obviously manifested in
the temple as the focal point of Greek culture but the order established in the temple also works to accentuate the rockiness
of the earth underneath and "the temple's firm towering makes visible the invisible space of air." A tension arises
in this stife between the earth and world which works in the sense that, over a certain period of time, a new perspective
can be eventually achieved. It is precisely through time how this "work" transforms our meanings accordingly. In
the case of Vincent Van Gogh's painting, it is as if the non-usefulness associated with art forces one to contemplate - Why
would someone focus so much time and effort on a pair of dirty-old peasants shoes and raise them to the platform of art? We
come to realize, in our contemplation, the actual being of shoes and how "the equipment belongs to the earth, and it
is protected in the world of the peasant woman." Art is a continual creation for the artist and also the viewer. Gauguin,
Van Gogh's roommate, described this process similarly when he wrote "Art is an abstraction; extract it from nature while
dreaming in front of it." Art enacts essential strife or, in other words, the happening of truth at work. In Hediegger's
words - "In the artwork, the truth of beings has set itself to work. Art is truth setting itself to work." Consequently,
Heidegger has completely redefined art and he tells us "The setting-into-work of truth thrusts up the awesome and at
the same time thrusts down the ordinary." This actually sounds a lot like Van Gogh's own words when he stated his objective
for art to "exagerrate the essential and leave the obvious vague."
Heidegger, however, did have problems with the history of aesthetics which he refers to as a specialized
form of thinking on art and the artist. Heidegger writes "The way in which aesthetics views the artwork from the outset
is dominated by the traditional interpretation of beings." By this, Heidegger intends that artworks have traditionally
been viewed only as mere things for consumption and as trophies which demonstrate man's mastery over nature. Focused solely
on the thingly aspect of art, aesthetics has managed to completely disregard the work-character of art which brings about
truth. Heidegger tells us "The essence of art would be this: the truth of beings setting itself to work. But until now
art presumably has had to do with the beautiful and beauty, and not with truth." Accordingly, aesthetics has been primarily
concerned with beauty while truth has been mistakenly relegated to logic. Heidegger claims that it is the artist, and not
the scientist, that actually shows us the truth. Following Nietzche's lead, Heidegger inverts the hierarchy established by
Plato and he, therefore, effectively places art at the pinnacle as the beacon from which the rest of his philosophy would
follow.
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