T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
th ai must suffice to establish that what we take in advance to be an art work is one in
4 ciples, are equally impossible here, and where these procedures are pract iced they arc a
TH E OR IG IN O F TH E WO R K OF
ART
Ma rtin Heidegger
Origin here means that from and by which something is what it is and as it is. What
something is, as it is, we call its essence or nature. The origin of someth ing is the source
of its nature. The question concerning the origin of the work of art asks abo ut the
source of its na ture. On the usual view, the work arises out of and by means of
the activity of the artist. But by what and whence is the artist what he is? By the work;
for to say that the work does credit to the maste r means that it is the work that first
lets the art ist emerge as a master of his art. The artis t is the origin of the work . The work
is the origin of the artist. Neither is without the other. Nevertheless, neither is the sole
support of the other. In themselves and in their interrelations artist and work are
each of them by virtue of a third thi ng which is prior to both, namely that which
also gives artist and work of art their names - art.
As necessarily as the artist is the origin of the work in a different way than the work
is the origin of the artist, so it is equally certai n that, in a still different way, art is the
origin of both artist and work. But can art be an origin at all? Where and how docs art
occur? Art - this is not hing more than a word to which nothing real any longer corres-
ponds. It may pass for a collective idea under which we find a place for that which
alone is real in art: works and arti sts. Even if the word art were taken to signify more
than a collective notion, what is meant by the word could exist only on the basis of the
actua lity of works and arti sts. Or is the converse the case? Do works and artists exist
only because art exists as their origin?
Whatever the decision may be, the question of the origin of the work of art becomes
a question about the nature of art. Since the question whether and how art in general
exists must still remain open, we shall atte mpt to discover the nature of art in the place
where art undoubtedly prevails in a real way. Art is present in the art work. But what
and how is a work of art?
What art is sho uld be inferable from the work. What the wor k of art is we can come
to know only from the nature of art. Anyone can easily see that we are moving in a
circle. Ordinary understandin g demands that this circle be avoided because it violates
logic. What art is can be gathered from a comparative examination of acrual art works.
But how are we to be certain that we are indeed basing such an examination on art
works if we do not know beforehand what art is? And the nature of art can no marc be
arrived at by a derivation from higher concepts than by a collection of characteristics
of act ual art works. For such a derivation, too, already has in view the characteristics
80
fact. But selecting works from among given objects, and deriving concepts from prin-
self-deception.
Thus we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect.
To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of
thought, assuming that thinki ng is a craft. Not only is the main step from work to an a
circle like the step from art (0 work, but every separa te step that we attempt circles in
this circle.
In order to discover the nature of the art that really prevails in the work, let us go to
the actual work and ask tbe work what and how it is.
Works of art are familiar to everyone. Architectural and sculpt ural works can be
seen installed in public places, in churches, and in dwellings. Art works of the most
diverse periods and peoples are housed in collections and exhibitions. If we consider
the works in their untouched actuality and do not deceive ourselves, the result is that
the works are as naturally present as are things. The picture hangs on the wall like a
rifle or a bat. A painting, e.g., the one by Van Gogh that represents a pair of peasa nt
shoes, travels from one exhibition to anothe r. Work s of art are shipped like coal from
the Ruhr and logs from the Black Forest. During the First World War Hc tdertin's
hymns were paeked in the soldier's knapsack together with cleaning gear. Beethoven's
quartets lie in the storerooms of the publishing house like po tatoes in a cellar.
All works have this th ingly character. What would they be witho ut it? But perhaps
this rathe r crude and external view of the work is objectionable to us. Shippers or
charwomen in museums may operate with such conceptions of the work of art. We,
however; have to take works as they are encountered by those who experience and
enjoy them. But even the much-vaunted aesthetic experience can not get aro und the
lhingly aspect of the art work. There is something stony in a work of architecture,
wooden in a carving, colored in a painting, spoken in a linguistic work, sonorous in a
musical composition. Th e thingly element is so irremovably present in the art work that
we arc compelled rather to say conversely that the architectural work is in stone, the
carving is in wood, the painting in color, the linguistic work in speech, the musical
composition in sound. 'Obviously,' it will be replied. No doubt. But what is this
self-evidenr thingly element in the work of art?
Presumably it becomes superl1uous and confusing to inquire into this feature, since
the ar t work is something else over and above the thingly element. This something else
in the work consti tutes its artistic nature. The art work is, to be sure, a th ing tha t is
made, but it says something oth er than the mere thing itself is, otto agoreue i. The work
makes public something other than itself; it manifests something other; it is an allegory.
In the work of art somet hing other is bro ught together with the thing tbat is made. To
bring together is, in Greek, sumhallein. The work is a symbol.
Allegory and symbol provide the conceptual frame within whose channel of vision
the art work has for a long time been characterized. But this one element in a work that
manifests another, this one element that joins with another, is the thingly feature in the
art work. It seems almost as though the thingiy clement in the art work is like the
subst ructure into and upon which the other, authentic element is built. And is it not
this thingly feature in the work that the artist really ma kes by his hand icraft?
Our aim is to arri ve at the immediate and full reality of the work of art, for only in
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this way shall we discover real art also within it. Hence we must first bring 10 view the
thingly clement o f the work. To this end it is necessary that we sho uld know wit h
sufficient cla rity what a thing is. On ly then can we say whether the art work is a thin g,
but a thing to which some thing else adheres; only then can we decide whether the work
is at bo ttom something else and not a thing at all.
T hing lind work
What in tru th is the thin g, so far as it is a thi ng? When we inquire in this way, our aim is
to come to kno w the thing-being (thlngness) of the thing. Th e poin t is to discover the
thingly character of the thi ng. To this end we have to be acq uainted with the sphere to
which all those entities belong which we have long called by the name o f thing.
T he stone in the road is a thing, as is the clod in the field. A jug is a thing, as is the
well beside the road . But what abo ut the milk in the ju g and the water in the well?
These too are things if the clou d in the sky and the thistle in the field, the leaf in the
autumn breeze and the hawk over the wood, are rightly called by the name of thing.
All these must indeed be called thin gs, if the name is applied even to that which does
not, like tho se j ust enume rated, show itself, i.e., that which does no t appear. Acco rding
to Kan t, the whole of the world, for example, an d even G od himself is a thing of this
sort , a thing that does not itself appear, nam ely, a ' thing-in-itself" In the lang uage o f
philosophy both things-in-themselves an d things tha t appear, all beings that in any way
a re, are called things.
Airplan es and rad io sets are nowaday s among the things closest to us, but when we
have ultimate things in mind we think of something alt oget her d ifferent. Death an d
ju dgment - these are ultima te things. On the whole the wo rd 'thing' here designates
whatever is not simply nothin g. In this sense the wo rk o f art is also a thing, so far as it
is not simply not hing. Yet this concept is of no use to us, at least immediately, in our
atte mpt to delimit entities tha t have the mode of being of a thin g, as against those
having thc mode of being of a work. And besides, we hesitat e 10 call God a th ing. Tn
the same way we hesitat e to consider the peasa nt in the ficld, the sto ker at the boiler,
the teacher in the school as thin gs. A man is not a thi ng. It is tru e that we speak of a
youn g girl who is faced with a ta sk too difficult for her as being a young thing, still too
yo ung for it, but only because we feel tha t being human is in a certain way missing here
an d think that instead we have to do here with the facto r that constitutes the thingly
character of th ings. We hesitate even to call the deer in the forest clea ring, the beetle in
the grass, the bladc of grass a thing. We would sooner t hink of a hammer as a thing, or
a shoe, o r an ax, or a clock . But even these are not mere things. Only a sto ne, a clod o f
earth, a piece of wood are for us such mere thi ngs. Lifeless beings of na ture an d objects
of use. Natu ral things and utensils are the things co mmo nly so called.
We thu s see ou rselves bro ught back from the widest dom ain , within which every-
thing is a thing (thing :: res » ens :: an en tity), includ ing even the highest and last
things, to the narro w precinct of mere things. ' Mere' he re mea ns, first, the pure thing,
which is simply a thing an d not hing more; but then, at the same time, it means that
which is only a thing, in an almost pejo rative sense. It is mere th ings, excluding even
use-objects, that coun t as things in the stric t sense. What does the thingly character of
these thin gs, then , consist in? It is in reference to these that the thingness of things m ust
be determinable. This de termin ation enables us to characte rize what it is that is thingly
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T H E ORI G t N O F THE WO R K OF A R T
as such. Thus prepared, we are ab le 10 characte rize the almost pa lpab le reality o f
wor ks, in which something else inheres.
• • •
That wh ich gives thin gs their cons tancy and pith bu t is also at the same time the so urce
of their pa rticular mode of sensuous pressure - colored, resona nt, hard, massive - is
the matter in things. In this an alysis of the thing as matter (hute), form (morphe) is
alrea dy co posited. What is constant in a thing , its consistency, lies in the fact that
ma tter stan ds togeth er wit h a form . Th e thing is formed matter. Th is interpretation
appeals to the immediate view with which the thing solicits us by its look s (eidos). In
this synt hesis of matter an d form a thi ng-concept has fina lly been found which ap plies
equally to things o f natu re and to use-objec ts.
This concep t puts us in a posit ion to ans wer the question concerning the thingly
element in the work o f ar t. The thingly elemen t is manifestly the ma tte r of which it
consist s, Matter is the substrate an d field for the artist's formative act ion . But we co uld
have adva nced this obvious and well-kn own definition of the thingly element at the
very ou tset. Why d o we ma ke a de to u r th ro ugh othe r current thing-concepts? Becau se
we also mistrust this co ncept of the thing, which represe nts it as formed ma tte r.
But is no t precisely this pair of concep ts, ma tte r- form, usually employed in the
dom ain in which we are suppose d to be moving? To be sure. The distin ction of ma tter
an d fo rm is the concep tual schema ....hich is used, in the greatest variety of ....ays, quitl!
generally f or all art theory and aesthetics. This incon testa ble fact , however, proves nei-
ther thaI the distinction o f matte r an d for m is adequa tely founded , nor that it belongs
originally to the do ma in of ar t an d the art work . Moreover, the range of ap plication of
this pair of co ncepts ha s long extended far beyond the field of aesthetics. For m and
co ntent are the most hackn eyed concepts under which any thing and everything may be
subs umed. And if form is correlated with the rational an d matter with the irrational; if
the ra tional is taken 10 be the logical and the irra tional the alogical; if in addi tion the
subject-object relat ion is co upled with the conceptual pa ir form-matter; then rcprcscn-
tation has at its comma nd a conce ptua l machinery that no thing is ca pable o f
withstandin g.
If, however, it is th us with the distinct io n between matter and fonn , how then sha ll
we make use of it to lay hold of the particu la r d omain of mere things by contrast with
all ot her entities? But perhaps this characterizat ion in terms of matte r and fo rm would
recover its defining po wer if on ly we reversed the process of expanding and emptying
these concepts. Certa inly, but this presup poses that we know in what sphere of beings
they realize their true defining power. Th at this is the do main of mere things is so fa r
only an assump tion. Reference to the copious use made of th is con ceptual frame wo rk
in aesthetics migh t sooner lead to the idea that matter and form are specifications
stemming fro m the nature o f the art work and were in the first place tran sferred from it
back to the thing. Where does the matter- form struc t ure have its origin - in the thin gly
cbaracter of the tbing or in the workly charac ter of the art work?
The self-conta ined block of granite is something mater ial in a definite if unsh apely
for m. Form mean s he re the dist rib ution an d arra ngement of the materiaJ parts in
spa tial loca tions, resulting in a particu lar shape, namely that of a block. But a jug, an
a x, a shoe are a lso matt er occurring in a form. For m as shape is no t the conseq uence
here of a prior distribution of the matter. The for m, on the contrary, determines the
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arrangement of the mailer. Even more, it prescribes in each case the kind and selection
of the mailer - impermeable for a j ug, sufficiently hard for an ax, firm yet flexible fo r
shoes. Th e interfusion of form and matter prevailing here is, moreover, controlled
beforehand by the purpo ses served by ju g, ax, shoes. Such usefulness is never assigned
or added on afterward to a being of the type of a ju g, ax, or pa ir of shoes. But neither
is it something that floats somewhere above it as an end.
Usefulness is the basic featu re from which this entity regards us, that is, flashes at us
and thereby is present and th us is this entity. Bo th the fo rmative ac t and the cho ice of
material - a choice given with the act - and the rewith the dominance of the conjunc-
tion of matter and form are all gro unded in such usefulness. A being that falls under
usefulness is always the produ ct of a process of making. It is made as a piece of
equipment for something. As determination s of beings, accordingl y, matte r and form
have their proper place in the essential nature of eq uipment. Thi s name designates
what is produ ced expressly for emplo yment and use. Maller and form are in no case
original deter minations of the thingness of the mere thing.
A piece of equipment, a pair of shoes for instance, when finished, is also self-
contained like the mere thing, but it does not have the cha racter of having taken shape
by itself like the granite bould er. On the ot her hand, equipment displays an affinity
with the art work insofar as it is something prod uced by the human hand . However, by
its self-sufficient presence the work of art is similar rather to the mere thing which has
taken shape by itself and is self-contained. Neverthe less we do not count such wo rks
among mere things. As a rule it is the use-objects a round us that are the nearest and
authentic things. Thus the piece of equipment is half thing, because characterized by
thingliness, and yet it is something mo re; at the same time it is half a rt work and
yet something less, becau se lacking the self-sufficiency of the art wo rk. Equipme nt
has a peculiar position intermediate between thin g and work, assuming that such a
calculated orderin g of them is perm issible.
T he matter-form structure, however, by which the being of a piece of equi pment is
first deter mined, readily presents itself as the immediately intelligible co nstitution of
every entity, because here ma n himself as maker participates in the way in which the
piece of equipmen t comes into being. Because equipmen t tak es an intermediate place
between mere thing and wo rk, the suggestio n is that no neq uipmental beings - things
and works an d ultimate ly everyt hing t hat is - are to be comprehended with the help of
the being of equipment (the matter- form structure).
Th e inclinatio n to treat the matt er-form structure as the co nstitution of every entit y
receives a yet additional impu lse from the fact that on t he basis of a religious faith .
namely, the biblical faith, the total ity of all beings is represented in ad va nce as some-
thing created, which here means made. The philosophy of this faith can of course
assure us that all of God's creative work is to be tho ught of as different from the action
of a cra ftsman . Nevertheless, if at the same time or even beforehan d, in acco rdance
with a presumed predetermin ation of T homistic philosop hy for interpreting the Bible,
the ens creatum is conceived as a unity of materia and fo rma, then faith is expounded
by way of a philosophy whose tru th lies in an unconcealcdness of beings which differs
in kind from the world believed in by faith .
Th e idea of creat ion, grounded in fa ith, can lose its guid ing power of knowledge of
beings as a whole. But the theological interpretatio n of all beings, the view of the wo rld
in terms of matter and form borrowed from an alien philosophy, having once been
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T H E ORI G I N O F THE WO R K OF A R T
instituted, ca n still remain a force. Thi s happens in the transition from the Middl e Ages
to modern times. T he metaphysics of the modern period rests on the form-matte r
struct ure devised in the medieval period , which itself merely recalls in its words the
buried natures of eidos and hule. Th us the interpretation of 't hing' by means of matter
and form, whether it remains medieva l or becomes Kantian-transcendental, has
become current and self-evident. But for tha t reaso n, no less than the ot her inter-
pretations men tioned of the thingness of the thing , it is an encroachment upon the
thin g-being of the thin g.
Th e situation stands revealed as soon as we speak of t hings in the strict sense as
mere things. The 'mere,' after all, mea ns the removal of the cha racter of usefulness a nd
of being made. Th e mere thin g is a sort of equipment , albeit eq uipment denuded of its
equipmental being. Thin g-bein g consi sts in what is then left over. But this remnant is
not actually defined in its ontological cha racter. It remains doubtful whether t he
thing ly character comes to view at all in the process of stripping ofT everything eq uip-
mental. T hus the third mode of inte rpre tation of the thin g, that which follows the lead
of the matter-form structure, a lso turns out to be an assault upon the thin g.
Th ese three modes of defining thingness co nceive of the thing as a beare r of t raits,
as the unity of a manifold of sensatio ns, as fo rmed mat ter, In the co urse of the history
of truth abo ut beings, the interp retations ment ioned have also entered into combin-
ations, a matter we may now pass over. In such com bination they have furth er
strengt hened their innate tendency 10 expand so as to apply in similar way to thin g, to
equipment, and to wor k. Thus they give rise to a mode of though t by which we thin k
not only abo ut thing, equipment, and work but abou t all beings in general. Th is long-
familiar mode of thought preconceives all immediate experience of beings. The pre-
co nception shackles reflection on the being of any given entity. Thus it comes abo ut
that prevailing thing-concepts obstruct the way towa rd the thingly character of t he
thing as well as towa rd the eq uipmental character of equipm ent, and all the more
toward the wor kly character of the work.
Th is fact is the reaso n why it is necessary to know abou t these thing-concepts,
in ord er thereby to take heed of their derivation and their boundless presumption.
but also of their semblance of self-evidence. This knowledge becomes all t he more
necessary when we risk the att empt to bring to view and express in words the thingly
chara cter of the thing, the eq uipmenta l character of eq uipment, a nd the workly
character of the work. To this end , however, only o ne element is needful: to keep at a
d ista nce all the preconceptions and assault s of the above modes of thou ght, to leave
the thing to rest in its own self, for insta nce, in its thing-being. What seems easier than
to let a being be j ust the being that it is? O r does this turn out to be the most difficult of
tasks, par ticula rly if such an intention - to let a being be as it is - represents the
opposite of the indifference that simply turns its back upon the being itself in favor of
an unexamined concept of being? We ought to turn toward the being, think about it in
regard to its being, but by means of this thinkin g at the same time let it rest upon itself
in its very own being.
Th is exertion of thought seems to meet with its greatest resistance in defining the
thingness of the thin g; for where else could the cause lie of the failure of the efforts
men tioned? The unpreten tious thing evades tho ught most st ubbornly. Or can it be that
this self-refusal of the mere thing, this self-contained independence, belongs precisely
to the nature of the thing? Must not this strange and uncomm unicative feat ure of the
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nature of the thing become intimately fam ilia r to thought that tries to think the thing?
If so, then we shoul d not force our way to its thingl y character.
That the thingness of the thing is pa rticularly difficult to express and only seldo m
exp ressible is infallibly document ed by the history of its interpreta tion ind icated above.
This history coincides with the dest iny in accordan ce with which Western thought has
hitherto tho ught the Being of beings. However, not only do we no w esta blish this point;
at the same time we discover a clue in this history. Is it an accident that in the inte rp ret-
atio n of the thin g the view that takes matter an d form as guide attains to special
domi nance? This definition of the thi ng derives from a n interpretati on of the equip-
mental being of equipment. And equipment, having come int o being through hum an
maki ng, is pa rticular ly familiar to hu ma n thi nking. At the sa me time, this familia r
being has a pec uliar in termediate positio n between thin g and wor k. We sha ll follow
this clue and search first for the eq uipmenta l charac ter of equ ipment. Perhaps this
will suggest some thing to us abo ut the thing ly character o f the thin g an d the work ly
character of the work. We must only avoid makin g thin g and work prem at urely int o
subspecies of equi pmen t. We are d isrega rding the possibilit y, however, t hat d ifferences
relating 10 the histo ry of Deing may yet also be present in the way equi pment is.
But what path leads to the cquipmerna l q uality of eq uipme nt? How shall we dis-
cover what a piece o f eq uipment truly is? Th e proced ure necessary at present must
plainly avoid any atte mpts that again immediately ent ail the encro achments of the
usual interpre tatio ns, We are most easily insured agai nst this if we simply describe
some equipment with out any philosophical theo ry.
We choose as exam ple a common sort of equipment - a pair of peasan t shoes. We do
not even need to exhibit ac tual pieces of this sort of useful articl e in o rder to describe
them. Everyone is acquainted with the m. But since it is a ma ncr here of d irect descrip-
tion, it may be well to facilitat e the visual realization of them. For this pu rpo se a
pictorial representation su ffices.. We sha l1 choose a well-known painting by Van G ogh,
who pa inted such shoes severa l times. But wha t is the re to see here? Everyone knows
what shoes co nsist of. If they are not wooden or bast shoes, there will be leath er soles
a nd up pers, joi ned together by thread and nails. Such gear serves to clot he the feet.
Depend ing o n the use to wh ich the shoes are to be put, whether for work in the field or
for dan cing, matter and form will differ.
Such statemen ts, no do ub t correct, on ly explicate wha t we already know. T he
equipmental qualit y of equipment co nsists in its usefulness. But what abo ut this use-
fulness itself ? In co nceiving it, do we already conceive along with it the equipmental
character of equipmen t? In order to succeed in doin g this, must we not look ou t for
useful equi pment in its use? Th e peasan t wom an wears her shoes in the field. Onl y here
are the y what they are. Th ey arc all the more gen uinely so, the less the peasa nt woma n
thinks abo ut the shoes while she is at work , or look s a t them at all, or is even aware of
them. She stands and walks in t hem. That is how shoes act ually serve. It is in this
process o f the use of eq uipment that we musl act ually encoun ter the character of
eq uipmen t.
As long as we o nly imagine a pair of shoes in general, or simply look at the emp ty,
unused shoes as they merely stand there in the picture, we shall never discover what the
eq uipme ntal being of the equipmen t in tr uth is. From Van Gogh's pa inting we cannot
even tell where these shoes stand. T here is nothing surrou ndi ng this pair of peasant
shoes in o r to which they might belong - o nly an undefined space. There are not even
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
clods of so il from the field or the field-path sticking to them, which would at least hint
at their use. A pair of peasant shoes and nothing more. And yet -
From the dark o pening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsom e tread of the
wo rker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accum ulated
ten acity of her slow trudge th ro ugh the far -sp readin g and ever-uni form furro ws of
the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness o f t he soil.
Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field -pat h as evening fa lls. In the shoes
vibrates the silent call o f the earth, its q uiet gift of the ripening grain and its
unexplained self-refusal in the fall ow deso latio n of the wintry field. This equipment is
pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to tbe ce rta inty of b read , the wordless joy o f
having once more withstood want, the trem bling before the impending childbed and
shivering at the surro unding menace o f death. T his eq uipment belong s to the earth,
and it is prot ected in the world of the peasant woma n. Fro m o ut o f this protected
belong ing the equipment itself rises to its resting-within-itself
But per haps it is only in the picture that we notice all this abo ut the shoes. Th e
pea sant woman , on the other ha nd , sim ply wears them. If onl y this sim ple wearin g
were so sim ple. When she takes off her shoes late in the evening. in dee p bu t healthy
fatigue, and reaches out for them aga in in the still dim dawn, or passes them by on the
d ay of rest, she knows allthis withou t noticing or reflecting. Th e eq uipmerual qu ality
of the eq uipment consists indeed in its usefulness. Hut this usefulness itself rests in the
abundance of an essentia l being of the equ ipment. We call it reliabil ity. By virtue o f
this reliability the pea sant woman is made privy to the silent call of the earth; by virt ue
of the reliability of the equi pmcnt she is sure of her world. World an d earth exist for
her, an d for those who are with her in her mode of being, o nly thu s - in the equi p men t.
We say 'on ly' and therew ith fall in to error; for the reliab ility of the eq uipment first
gives to the sim ple world its security and assu res to the earth the freedom of its steady
thrust.
Th e eq uipmental being of equipment, reliab ility, keeps gat hered within itself all
things according to their ma nner a nd extent . Th e usefulness of eq uipment is neverth e-
less only the essential conseq uence of reliability. The former vibra tes in the latt er and
would be no thing without it. A single piece of equipment is worn o ut and used up; but
a t the same time the use its elf also falls into disuse, wea rs away, and becomes usua l.
Th us eq uipmenrality wastes away, sinks into mere stuff. In such wasting , reliability
vanishes. Th is dwind ling, however, to which use-things owe their boringly o btrusive
usualness, is only one mo re testimony to the original nature of eq uipmen taJ being. The
worn-out usualness of the equi pment then obtr udes itself as the sole mode of being,
a ppare ntly peculia r to it exclusively. On ly blank usefulness DOW remains visible. It
awakens the impression that the o rigin of eq uipment lies in a mere fabricating tha t
impresses a form upo n some matter, Never theless, in its genuinely eq uiprnemal being,
equi pment stems from a more distant source. Matter and form an d their distin ction
have a deepe r origin.
Th e repose of equipment resting within itself consists in its reliabilit y. Only in this
reliability do we discern what eq uipment in truth is. But we still know not hing o f what
we first sought : the thing's thi ngly character. And we know nothing at all of what we
really an d solely seek the wo rkly cha rac ter of the work in the sense of the work o f art.
Or have we already learned something un witt ingly, in passing so to spea k, abo ut t he
work-being of the wor k?
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Th e equipmental qua lity of equipment was discovered. But how? Not by a descrip-
tion and explanation of a pair of shoes actually present; not by a report about the
process of making shoes ; and also not by the o bservation of the actual use of shoes
occurring here and there; but on ly by bringing oursel ves before Van Gogh's painting.
This painting spoke. In the vicinity of the work we were suddenly somewhere else than
we usually tend to be.
T he art work let us know what shoes are in truth. It would be the WONt self-
deception to think that o ur descripti on , as a su bjective action, had first depicted every-
thing thus and then projected it into the painting. If a nything is q uestionable here, it is
rather tha t we experienced too little in the neighbo rhood of the work a nd that we
expressed the experience too cr udely and too literally. But above all, the work did
no t, as it might seem at first, serve merely for a bette r visualizing of what a piece of
equi pment is. Rath er, the eq uipmentali ry of equipmen t first genuinely a rrives at its
ap pearance through the work and on ly in the work.
What happens here? What is at work in the work? Van Gogh's painting is the dis-
clos ure of what the equ ipment , the pair of peasant shoes, is in truth. This entity
emerges into the unconcea ted ness of its being. Th e G reeks called the unconcealedness
of beings aletheia. We say 't ruth' a nd think little eno ugh in using this word. If there
occurs in the work a disclosure of a pa rticular being, disclosing wha t and how it is,
then there is here an occurring, a happening of truth at wo rk.
In the work of art the trut h of an entit y has set itself to work . 'To set' means here: to
bring to a sta nd. Some parti cular entit y, a pair of peasant shoes, comes in the wor k to
stand in the light of its being. The being of the being comes into the steadiness of its
shi ning.
T he nat ure of art wou ld then be this: the tr uth of beings setting itself to wo rk. But
until now ar t presuma bly has had to do with the beau tiful and bea uty, and not with
truth . The arts that produce such works a re called the bea utiful or fine a rts, in contrast
with the applied or industrial ar ts that manufacture equ ipment. In fine a rt the art itself
is not beautiful, but is ca lled so because it produces the beau tiful. Truth, in co ntrast,
belongs to logic. Beauty, however, is reserved for aesthetics.
But perhaps the pro position that art is truth setting itself to work intends to revive
the fortunately obsolete view that art is an imitation and dep iction of reality? The
reprod uction of what exists requires, to be sure, agreement with the actual being, ada p-
tation to it ; the Midd le Ages called it adaequatio; Aristo tle alread y spoke of hamoiosis.
Agreeme nt with what is has long been tak en to be the essence of tru th. But then , is it
o ur opinion t hat this pain ting by Van Gogh dep icts a pair of ac tually existing peasa nt
shoe s, and is a work of art becau se it does so successfully? Is it our opinion that the
pain ting draws a likeness from something act ual and transposes it into a product of
artistic - productio n? By no means.
• • • people, does not refer to this bat tle; it transforms t he people's saying so tha t now every
The work and truth
A building, a Gree k temple, portrays nothin g. It simply stands there in the middle of
the rock-cleft valley. The building encloses the figure of the god, a nd in this conceal-
ment lets it stand o ut into the holy precinct through the open portico. By means of the
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
temple, the god is present in the templ e. This presence of the god is in itself the exten-
sion and delimitation of the precinct as a holy precinct. The temple and its precinct ,
however, do not fade away into the indefinite. It is the temple-work that first fits
toge ther and at the same time gathe rs a round itself the unity of t hose path s and rela-
tio ns in which birth a nd death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, end urance
a nd decline acq uire the shape of destiny for human being. The all-governing expanse
of this open relatio nal con text is the world of this historical people. Only from and in
this expan se does the nation first return 10 itself for the fulfillment of its vocation.
Standing there, the build ing rests on the rocky ground. Thi s resting of the work
d raws up ou t of the rock the mystery of that rock's clumsy yet spontaneous support.
Stan ding there, the buildi ng holds its grou nd against the sto rm raging above it and so
first makes the stor m itself manifest in its vio lence. Th e luster and gleam of the stone.
though itself apparen tly glowing only by the grace of the sun, yet first brings to light
the light of the day, the breadth of the sky, the darkness of the night. The temple's firm
towerin g makes visible the invisible space of air. The steadfastness of the work con-
trasts with the surge of t hc surf, and its own repose brings out t he raging of the sea.
Tree an d grass, eagle a nd bull, snake and cricket first enter into their distinctive shapes
and th us come to appea r as what they arc. The G reeks ea rly called this emerging and
rising in itself and in all things phusis. It clea rs a nd illuminates, also, that on which and
in which man bases his dwelling. We call this groun d the earth, What this wo rd says is
not to be associated with the idea of a mas s of mailer deposited somewhere, or with
the merely astrono mica l idea of a planet. Earth is that whence the a rising brings back
and shelters everything that arises without violatio n. In the things tha t arise, earth is
present as the sheltering agent.
Th e temple-work , sta nd ing there, ope ns up a world and at the same time sets this
world back again on ear th, which itself only thu s emerges as native gro und. But men
a nd anima ls, plants and things, are never present and familiar as uncha ngeable objects,
o nly to represent incidentally also a filling environment for the temple, which one fine
day is added 10 what is already there. We shall get closer to what is, rath er, if ....'C think
of a Uthis in reverse o rder, assuming of co urse that we have, to begin with , an eye for
how differently everything then faces us. Mere reversing, done for its own sake, reveals
not hing.
Th e temple, in its stan ding there, first gives to things their look and to men their
out look on themselves. T his view remains open as long as the wor k is a wo rk, as long
as the god has not fled from it. It is the same with the sculpture of the god, vo tive
offering of the victo r in the at hletic games. It is not a portrait whose purpose is to make
it easier to realize how the god loo ks; rather, it is a wo rk that lets the god himself be
present and thus is the god himself, The same holds for the linguistic work. In the
tragedy no thing is staged or displayed theatrica lly, but the battle of the new gods
agai nst the old is being fought. The linguistic work , originat ing in the speech of the
living word fights the batt le and puts up for decisio n what is holy and what unholy,
what great and what small, what brave and what cowardly, what lofty a nd what flight y,
what master and what slave (cf. Heraclitus, Fragment 53).
In what, then , does the work-being of the wo rk consist? Keeping steadily in view the
po ints ju st crudely enoug h indicated, two essential features of the work may for
the moment be brou ght o ut more distinctly. We set o ut here, from the long familiar
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foreground of the work's being, the thingly chara cter which gives support to our
custom ary attitude toward the work.
When a work is brought into a collection or placed in an exhibition we say also that
it is 'set up.' But this setting up differs essentially from setting up in the sense of
erecting a building, raising a statue, presenting a tragedy at a holy festival. Such setting
up is erecting in the sense of dedicatio n and praise. Here 'setting up' no longer means a
bare placing. To ded icate means to consecrate, in the sense that in selling up the work
the holy is opened up as holy and the god is invoked into the open ness of his presence.
Praise belongs to dedication as doing honor to the dignity and splendor of the god.
Dignity and splendor are not properties beside and behind which the god, too, sta nds
as something distinct, but it is rather in the dignit y, in the splendor tha t the god is
present. In the retlected glory of this splendor there glows, i.e., there lightens itself,
what we called the word. To e-rect means: to open the right in the sense of a guiding
measure, a form in which what belongs to the nature of being gives guidance. But why
is the setting up of a work an erecting th at consecrates and praises? Because the work ,
in its work -being, demand s it. How is it that the work comes to demand such a setting
up? Because it itself, in its own work-being, is something that sets up. What does the
work , as work , set up? Towering up within itself, the work opens up a worldand keeps
it abidingly in force.
To be a work mean s to set up a world. But what is it to be a world? The answer was
hinted at when we referred to the temple. On the path we must follow here, the nature
of world can only be indicated . What is more, this indication limits itself to warding
off anything that might at first distor t our view of the world's nature.
The world is not the mere collection of the countable or uncountable, familiar and
unfamiliar things that are just there. But neither is it a merely imagined framework
added by ou r representation to the sum of such given things. The world worlds; and is
more fully in being than the tangib le and perceptible realm in which we believe our-
selves to be at home. World is never an object that stands before us and can be seen.
World is the ever-nonobjective to which we are subject as long as the pat hs of birth and
death, blessing and curse keep us transported into Being. Wherever those decisions of
our history that relate to our very being arc made, are taken up and aband oned by us,
go unrecognized and are rediscovered by new inq uiry, there the world worlds. A stone
is worldless. Plant and animal likewise have no world; but they belong to the covert
throng of a surro unding into which they are linked. Th e peasant woman , on the other
hand, has a world because she dwells in the overtness of beings, of the things that are.
Her equipmen t, in its reliability, gives to this world a necessity and nearness of its own.
By the ope ning up of a world, all things gain their lingering and hastening, their
remoteness and nearness, their scope and limits. In a world's worlding is gathered that
spaciousness ou t of which the protective grace of the gods is gran ted or withheld. Even
this doom of the god remaining absent is a way in which world worlds.
A work, by being a work, makes space for that spacious ness. 'To make space for'
means here especially to liberate the Open and to establish it in its stru cture. This
in-stalling occurs through the erecting mentioned earlier. The work as work sets up a
world. The work holds open the Ope n of the world . But the setting up of a world is
only the first essential feature in the work-being of a work to be referred to here.
Startin g again from the foregrou nd of the work , we shall atte mpt to ma ke clear in the
same way the second essential feature that belongs with the first.
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
When a work is created, brought forth out of this or that work-material - stone,
wood, metal, color, langua ge, ton e - we say also that it is made, set forth out of it. But
just as the work requires a selling up in the sense of a consecrating-praising erection,
because the work 's work- being consists in the setting up of a world, so a setting forth is
needed because the work -being of the work itself has the character of setting forth .
The work as work , in its presencing, is a setting forth, a making. But what does the
work set fort h? We come to know about this only when we explore what comes to the
fore and is customarily spoken of as the making or producti on of work s.
To work-being there belongs the setting up of a world. Thinking of it within this
perspective, what is the nature of that in the work which is usua lly called the work
material? Because it is determined by usefulness and serviceability, equi pment takes
into its service that of which it consists: the matt er. In fabricating equipment - e.g., an
ax - stone is used, and used up. It disappears into usefulness. The material is all
the better and mo re suitable the less it resists perishing in the equipmental being of the
equipment. By contrast the temple-work, in setting up a world, does not cause the
material to disa ppear, but rather causes it to come forth for the very first time and to
come into the Open of the work's world. Th e rock comes to bear and rest and so first
becomes rock; metals come to glitter and shimmer, colors to glow, tones to sing, the
word to speak. All this comes fort h as the work sets itself hack into the massiveness
and heaviness of stone, int o the firmness and pliancy of wood, into the hardness and
luster of metal, into the lighting and darkening of color, into the clang of tone, and
into the naming power of the word.
That into which the work sets itself back and which it causes to come forth in this
setti ng back of itself we called the earth . Earth is that which comes forth and shelters.
Earth , self-dependent, is effor tless and untiring. Upon the earth and in it, historical
man grounds his dwelling in tbe wor ld. In setting up a world, the work sets forth the
earth. Th is setti ng forth must be thought here in the strict sense of the word. The work
moves the earth itself into the Open of a world and keeps it there. The work: lets the
earth be on earth .
But why must this setting forth of the earth happen in such a way that the work sets
itself back into it? What is the earth tha t it attains to the unconcealed in just such a
manner? A stone presses downward and manifests its heaviness. But while this heavi-
ness exerts an opposing pressure upon us it denies us any penetration into it. If we
attempt such a penetration by breaking open the rock, it still does not display in its
fragments anythin g inward that has been disclosed. The stone has instantly withdrawn
aga in into the same dull pressure and bulk of its fragments. If we try to lay hold of the
stone's heaviness in another way, by placing the stone on a balance. we merely bring the
heaviness into the form of a calculated weight. This perhaps very precise determi nation
of the stone remains a number, but the weight's burden has escaped us. Color shines
and wants only to shine. When we analyze it in rat iona l terms by mcasuring its wave-
lengths, it is gone. It shows itself only when it remains undisclosed and unexplained.
Earth th us shatte rs every attempt to penetrate into it. 1t causes every merely calculating
import unity upon it to tum into a destruct ion. Th is destru ction may herald itself
under the ap pearance of mastery and of progress in the form of the technical-scientific
objectivation of natu re, but this mastery neverth eless remains an impotence of will.
The earth appea rs openly cleared as itself only when it is perceived and preserved as
that which is by nature undisclosable, that which shrinks from every disclosure and
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constantly keeps itself closed up. All thing s of eart h, and the earth itself as a who le.
flow togeth er into a reciprocal accord . But this conflu ence is no t a blurrin g of their
outlines. Here there flows the stream, restful within itself, of the setting of boun ds,
which delimits everything present within its presence. T hus in each of the self-secluding
things there is the same not -knowing-of-one-another. T he earth is essentially self-
secludin g. To set fort h the earth means to bring it into the Open as the self-secluding.
T his setting forth of the earth is achieved by the work as it sets itself back into the
ea rth. The self-seclusion of earth, however, is not a uniform . inflexible stayin g under
cover, but unfolds itself in an inexhaust ible variety of simple mode s and sha pes. To be
sure, the sculptor uses sto ne j ust as the mason uses it, in his own way. But he does not
usc it up. That hap pens in a certain way only where the wo rk miscarries. To be sure. the
painter also uses pigment, but in such a way that color is not used up but rather only
now comes to shine fo rth. To be sure, the poet also uses the word - not, however, like
ordinary spea kers and writers who have to usc them up, but rather in such a way tha t
the word only now becomes and remains tr uly a word.
Nowhere in the work is there an y trace ofa work-material. It even remains doubtful
whethe r, in the essential definitio n of equipment, what the eq uipment co nsists of is
properly described in its eq uiprncnta l nature as matt er.
Th e setting up of a world and the setting forth of ea rth are two essential features in
the work-being of the work . Th ey belong together, however, in the unity of work-
being. T his is the unit y we seek when we ponder the self-su bsistence of the work and
try to express in words this closed, unitar y repo se of self;suppo rt.
But in the essential features ju st men tioned, if o ur account has any validity at all, we
have indicated in the work rather a hap pening and in no sense a repose, for what is rest
if not the opposite of motion? It is at any rate not a n opposite that excludes motion
from itself, but rather includ es it. Only what is in motion ca n rest. The mode of rest
varies with the kind of mo tion . In mo tio n as the mere displaceme nt of a body, rest is,
to be sure, only the limiting case of motion. Where rest includes motion, there ca n exist
a repo se which is an inne r co ncentratio n of motion , hence a highest sta te of agitation ,
assuming that the mod e of mo tion requi res such a rest. Now the repose of the work
that rests in itself is of this sort. We shall therefore come nearer to this repo se if we can
succeed in grasping the state of movement of the happe ning in work- being in its full
unity. We ask: Wha t relation do the setting up of a world and the setting forth of the
ear th exhibit in the work itself?
T he world is the self-disclosing open ness of the broad paths of the simple and essen-
tial decisions in the destiny of an historical people. Th e ea rth is t he spontaneous forth-
co ming of that which is continually self-secluding and to that extent sheltering and
co ncealing. World and eart h are essentially different from one an ot her and yet are never
sepa rated. Th e world gro unds itself on the ea rth, and earth juts through world. But the
relation between world and earth does no t wither away into the empty unity of oppos-
ites unconcern ed wit h one anot her. T he wo rld, in resting upon the earth, strives to
sur mount it. As self-opening it ca nnot end ure a nything closed. Th e earth, however, as
sheltering and concealing, tends always to dr aw the world into itself and keep it t here.
The opposition of world and ea rth is a striving. But we wo uld surely all too easily
falsify its natu re if we were to confo und striving with discord and d ispute. and thu s see
it only as disorder and destruction. In essential striving, rather, the Opponents mise
each o ther into the self-assertion of their natures. Self-assertio n of natu re, however, is
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
never a rigid insistence u pon some cont ingen t state. but surrender to the concealed
o riginality of the source of one's o wn being. In the strugg le, each opponent carries the
o ther beyond itself. Thus the striving becomes ever more intense as striving, and more
authen tically what it is. T he mo re the struggle overdoes itself on its own part, the mo re
inflexibly do the opponents let themselves go into the intimacy of simple belong ing to
one another. The earth cannot dispense with the Open of the world if it itself is to
appear as ear th in the liberated su rge of its self-seclusion. The wo rld, again, cannot
soar out of the ea rth's sight if, as the governing bread th and path of all essential
destiny, it is to ground itself o n a resolute fo undation .
In setting up a world a nd setting forth the earth, the work is an instigating of th is
striving. This does not hap pen so that the work sbould at the same time settle and put
an end to the co nflict in an insipid agreement , but so that the strife may remain a strife.
Setting up a world and selling forth the earth, the work accomplishes this striving. The
work-being of the work consists in the fighting of the battle between wo rld and earth.
It is because the struggle ar rives at its high point in the simplicity of intimacy that the
unity of the work come s about in the fighting of the battl e. The fighting of the batt le is
t he con tinually self-overreaching gathe ring of the .....o rk's agitation. The repo se of the
work tha t rests in itself thus has its presencing in the intimacy of strivin g.
From this repose of the wo rk we can now fi rst see what is at work in the work . Until
now it was a merely provisional assertion that in an ar t work the truth is set to work. In
what way does truth happen in the work-being of the work, i.e., now, how does truth
happen in the fight ing of the battle between world and earth? What is truth?
How slight and stunted o ur knowledge of the natu re of truth is, is shown by the
laxity we permi t o urselves in using this basic word . By t ruth is usually meant this o r
tha t particular truth. Th at means: something true. A cognition a rticulated in a prop-
osition can be of this sort. However, we call not o nly a proposition true. but also a
thing, true gold in co ntrast with sham gold. True here means genuine. real gold. What
d oes the expression ' rea l' mean here? To us it is what is in truth. The tru e is what
co rresponds to the real, and the real is what is in truth. Th e circle has closed again.
What does 'in truth' mean? Truth is the essence of the true. What do we have in mind
when spea king of essence? Usually it is thought to be those features held in common
by everything that is true. T he essence is discovered in the generic and universal con-
cept, which represents the one featu re tha t holds indifferently for man y thin gs. This
indifferent essence (essentia lity in the sense of I'SSenlw ) is. however, only the inessential
essence. What does the essential essence of something consist in? Presumably it lies in
what the en tity is in tru th. The t rue essential nature of a thing is determined by way of
its tru e being, by way of the tru th of the given being. But we are now seeking not the
truth o f essent ial nat ure but the essential nat ure of truth . Th ere thus appe a rs a curio us
tangle. Is it o nly a c uriosity o r even merely the emp ty sophistry of a co ncept ual game,
o r is it - an abyss?
Truth mean s the nat ure of the tr ue. We thin k this nature in recollecting the G reek
word atetheta, the unco ncea led ness of beings. But is this enough to define the nature of
tru th? Arc we not passin g off a mere change of word usage - unconcealedness instead
of t ruth - as a cha racterization of fact? Certainly we do not get beyond an interchange
of nam es as long as ....-e do no t come to know what must have happe ned in order to be
compelled to tell the na ture of truth in the wo rd 'un concealedn ess,'
Does this require a revival of Greek philosophy? Not at all. A revival, even if such
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an impossi bility were possible, would be of no help to us; for the hidden history of
G reek ph ilosoph y cons ists from its beginning in this, that it docs not remain in con-
formity with the nature of truth tha t flashes ou t in the word alet heia, and ha s to
misdirect its knowing and its speaking abo ut the nature of tr uth more and mo re into
the discussion of a derivative nature of tr uth, The nature of truth as aletheia was no t
thought o ut in the thinking of the Gre eks nor since then , and least of all in the phil-
oso phy that fo llowed after. Unco ncealedn ess is, for thought, the most co ncealed thin g
in Greek existence, alth ough from early times it determ ines the presence of everything
present .
Yet why shoul d we not be satisfied with the natu re of tr uth that has by now been
familiar to us for centuries? Truth mean s today and has long meant the agreeme nt or
co nformity of knowledge with fac t. However, the fact must show itself to be fact if
knowledge and the proposition that form s and expresses knowledge a re to be able to
con form to the fact; oth erwise the fact cannot become binding o n the propos ition.
How can fact show itself if it cannot itself stand forth out of co ncealedness, if it does
not itself stand in the unconcealed? A propositio n is t rue by conforming to the
unconcea led, to what is true. Propositiona l tru th is always, and always exclusively, this
correc tness. Th e critical co ncepts of truth which, since Descarte s, start o ut from truth
as certainty, are merely variati ons of the definition of truth as correctness. This nature
of truth which is familiar to us - cor rectness in representati on - stands and falls with
trut h as unccnce aledness of beings.
If here and elsewhere we co nceive of truth as c ncon cealedness, we a re not merely
taking refuge in a more literal translation of a G reek word . We are reminding ourselves
of what , unexperienced and unthought, underlies our familiar a nd therefore o utworn
nat ure of tru th in the sense of correct ness. We do, of co urse, occas ionally take the
tro uble to concede that na tura lly, in orde r to und erstand and verify the correc tness
(t ruth) of a proposition o ne really should go back to something that is a lready evident ,
a nd that this presupposition is indeed unavo idable. As long as we talk and believe in
this way, we always understand truth merely as correc tness, which of course still
requires a furth er presupposition, that we ourselves just happen to make, heaven knows
how or why,
But it is no t we who presuppose the unconcealedn ess of beings; rather, the uncon-
cealedness of beings (Being) puts us into such a condition of being t hat in our repre-
sentation we always remain insta lled within and in attendance upon uncon cealed ness.
N ot only must that in conformity with which a cognition orders itself be already in
some way unconcealed. The entire realm in which this 'co nfo rming to something' goes
on must already occur as a whole in the unco ncealed; a nd this holds eq ually of tha tf or
which the co nformity of a propo sition to fact becomes ma nifest. With all our co rrect
representations we would get nowhere, we co uld not even presuppose that there already
is manifest some thing to which we ca n co nform o urselves, unless the unconcealcdn ess
of beings had already exposed us 10, placed us in that lighted realm in which every
being sta nd s for us and from which it withdraws.
But how does this take place? How does trut h happen as this unconcealcdncss?
First, however, we must say more clearly what this unconcealedn ess itself is.
Thin gs are, and human beings, gifts, and sacrifices are, animals and plants are,
equipment and works are. That which is, the particular being, stan ds in Being.
T hrough Being there passes a veiled destiny that is ordained between the godly and the
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
co unlergodly. There is much in being that man cannot master. There is but little that
co mes to be known. What is known remains inexact, what is mas tered insecure. What
is, is never of our making or even merely the product of o ur mind s, as it migh t all too
easily SCCJTl. when we contemplate this whole as one, then we appre hend, so it appe a rs,
all tha t is - though we grasp it crudely enough,
And yet - beyond what is, not away from it but before it, there is still somet hing else
that happens. In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs. Th ere is a
clearing, a lighting. Thought of in reference to what is, to beings, this clearing is in a
great er degree than are beings. This o pen center is therefore not surro unded by what is;
rather, the lighting cente r itself encircles all that is, like the Nothin g which we scarcely
know.
That which is can only be, as a being, if it stands within a nd stands out within what
is lighted in this cleari ng. Only this clearin g gra nts and guarantees to us huma ns a
passage to those beings that we o urselves a re not , and access to the being thaI we
o urselves are. Th anks 10 this clearing, beings are unconce aled in certa in changing
degrees. And yet a being can be concealed, too , o nly within t he sphe re of what is
lighted . Each being we encoun ter and which encount ers us keeps to this curious
opposition of presence in that it always withh olds itself at the same time in a con-
ccaicdoess, Th e clea ring in which beings stand is in itself at the same time concealment.
Concealment, however, preva ils in the midst of beings in a twofold way.
Beings refuse them selves to us down to thaI one and seemingly least feature which
we touch upon most readil y when we can say no more of beings t ha n that they are.
Concea lment as refusal is not simply a nd o nly the limit of knowl edge in any given
circumstance, but the beginning of the clearin g of what is lighted . But concealment,
tho ugh of ano ther so rt, to be sure, at the same time also occurs within what is lighted,
One being places itself in front of anot her being, the one helps to hide the other, the
former obscures the latter, a few obstruct many, one denies all. Here concea lment is not
simple refusal. Rather, a being appea rs, but it presents itself as other than it is.
This concealment is dissemblin g. If one being did not simulate ano ther, we co uld not
make mistakes or act mistake nly in regard to beings; we could not go astray and trans-
gress, and especially could never overreach ourselves. That a being should be able to
deceive as semblance is the co ndition for o ur being able to be deceived, not conversely
Concealment can be a refusal or merely a dissembli ng. We are never fully certain
whether it is the one or the ot her. Concealment conceals and dissembles itself. This
mean s: the open place in the midst of beings, the clearing, is never a rigid stage with a
permanently raised cu rta in on which the play of beings run s its course. Rather, the
clearing happens o nly as this doubl e conce alment. The unconcealed ness of beings -
this is never a merely existent state, but a happening. Vnconcealedness (t rut h) is neith er
an attribute of factual thin gs in the sense of beings, nor o ne of propositions.
We believe we are at home in the immedia te circle of beings. That which is, is famil-
iar, reliable, ord ina ry. Nevertheless, the clearing is pervad ed by a co nstant co ncealment
in the double form of refusal and d issembling. At bottom , the o rdinary is not ordinary ;
it is extra -ordinary, uncan ny. The nature of truth, that is, of unconccaledncss, is dom -
inated throughout by a denial. Yet this denial is not a defect o r a fault, as tho ugh tru th
were an unalloyed unconcealed ness that has rid itself of everything concealed . If truth
could accomplish this, it wo uld no lo nger be itself. This denial, in the form of a double
concealment, belongs 10 the nature oj truth as unconceoledness. Tru th, in its na ture, is
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un-truth. We put the matt er t his way in ord er to serve no tice, with a possibly surp rising
trenchancy, that de nial in the manner of conce alme nt belo ngs to unconcealed ness as
clearing. The propos ition, ' the na ture of truth is un tr uth,' is not, however, int ended to
state that truth is at bottom falsehood. Nor docs it mean tha t truth is never itself but,
viewed dialectically, is always also its opposite.
Truth occurs precisely as itself in that the concealing denial, as refusal, provides its
consta nt source to all clearing, and yet, as dissemblin g, it me tes out to all clearin g th e
indefeasibl e sever ity of error. Concealing denial is intended to denot e that oppos ition
in t he nature of tru th which subs ists between clearing, o r lighting, and concealing. It is
the o ppos itio n of the pr imal con flict. The nat ure o f truth is, in itself, the pr imal co nflict
in which that o pen cent er is won within which what is, stands, an d from which it sets
itself back into itself
This O pen hap pen s in th e midst of beings. It exhibits an essen tial featu re which we
have already menti on ed. To the Open th ere belon g a wo rld and th e earth. But th e
world is not simply the Open that corres po nds to clearing. and the ea rth is not simply
t he Closed that cor responds to co ncealment. Rather, th e world is the clearing of th e
path s of the essenti al guiding di rectio ns with wh ich all decision complies. Every
decision, however, bases itself on some t hing not mas tered, something concealed, con-
fusing; else it would never be a decision . Th e earth is not simply the Closed but rath er
tha t which rises up as self-closing. World and earth are always intrinsically a nd essen-
tially in conflict, belligeren t by nat ure. Only as suc h do they enter int o the conflict o f
clea rin g a nd concealing.
Earth ju ts through the world an d wor ld grounds itself on th e earth o nly so fa r as
tru th happens as the pri mal con flict bet ween clearing and concealing. But how does
tr uth hap pen? We an swer: it ha ppens in a few essent ial ways. O ne of these ways in
which truth hap pen s is the wo rk-being o f the wor k. Sett ing up a wo rld and sett ing
for th the ea rth , the work is the fighting of the battle in which the unconceal ed ness o f
beings as a who le, or t ruth, is won.
Tru th hap pens in the tem ple's sta nding where it is. Thi s doc s not mean th at some-
thing is co rrectly represented and rende red here, but that what is as a whole is brought
into unconcealed ness and held therein . To h old (halten) o riginally means to tend, keep,
ta ke care (Mien). Tr uth happen s in Va n G ogh's painting. Th is d ocs no t mean that
something is correctly portrayed , but rath er th at in the revelati on of th e equipmental
being of th e shoes, that which is as a whole - world and ea rth in th eir co un terpl ay -
attains to unco ncealed ness.
Th us in t he work it is truth, not on ly som et hing true, that is at work. T he p icture th at
shows the peasant shoes. the poem that says th e Roma n fountai n, do not just ma ke
manifest what this isolated being as such is - if indeed they mani fest any thing at a ll;
rathe r, th ey mak e unccncealed ness as such happen in regard to what is as a whole. Th e
more simply and au then tically the shoes are eng rossed in their nature, the more p lainly
an d purely th e fountain is engro ssed in its nature - the more di rectly and engagingly do
all beings att ain to a greater degr ee of being along with them. Th at is how self-
co ncea lin g being is illuminated . Light of th is kind joins its shining to and into th e
wo rk. This shining.join ed in th e wo rk. is the beaut iful. Beauty is one way in which muh
occurs as unconcealedness.
We now, ind eed , gra sp the nature of t ru th more clea rly in cert ain respect s. Wha t is at
work in the work may accordingly have beco me more clear. But the work's now visible
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
work -bein g still d oes not tell us anyt hing about th e work 's closes t and mos t obtru sive
reality, abo ut the thingly aspect of the work. Indeed it almost seems as tho ugh , in
pur suin g the exclusive aim of grasping th e wo rk 's ind ependence as purely as possible,
we had compl etely overlooked th e one thing, that a work is always a work , which
means th at it is something work ed out, b rou ght abo ut, effected. If there is any t hing
that di stinguishes the work as work, it is th at the work has been created . Since the wo rk
is creat ed , and creation req uires a medium ou t o f which and in which it crea tes, th e
thingly element , too, en ters into the work. This is incontestable,
• • •
Truth and a rt
But what looks like the th ingly element, in th e sense of o ur usualthing-concep ts, in th e
work taken as object, is, seen from the perspective of the work , its ea rthy character.
T he eart h juts up within th e wo rk because th e work exists as som ething in which truth
is at work and beca use truth occu rs only by installin g itself within a pa rt icula r bein g.
1.0 the earth, however, as essent ially self-clos ing, the ope nness of the Open finds the
greatest resistance (to the Open ) and thereby th e site of the Open 's constant sta nd ,
where the figure mus t be fixed in place.
Was it then superflu ous, a fter all, to enter into th e qu estion of the thingly cha ra cter
of the th ing? By no means. To be sure, the work's work -charact er canno t be defined in
ter ms of its thingly character, but as aga inst th at th e qu est ion about t he thing's th ingly
ch aracter can be brought into th e right course by way of a knowledge of the work 's
work -character. This is no small matte r, if we recol1ect that those an cient, tradition al
modes of th ou ght attack t he thi ng's thingly character an d make it subject to an
in terpretat ion of what is as a whole, which rem ain s un fit to apprehend the na ture o f
eq uipm en t and of the work , and which makes us equ ally blind to the o riginal nature
of truth .
To determine the thing 's thingness neither consideration of the bearer of properties
is adequate, no r that of th e mani fold of sense da ta in the ir unity, and least of all that of
the ma tter- form str ucture regarded by itself, which is derived from eq uipment. An tici-
pating a meanin gful an d weighty interpretation o f th e thingly character of things, we
m ust aim at th e thing's belonging to the ea rt h. Th e nat ure of the earth, in its free and
unh urr ied bea ring an d self-closure , reveals itself, however, on ly in the eart h' s jutting
into a world , in th e op position of th e two. This conflict is fixed in place in the figure o f
the work and becomes manifest by it. Wh at ho lds true of equipment - na mely th at we
co me to kn ow its cq uipmen tal chara cter specifically only thro ugh t he work itself - also
holds o f the thi ngly character of the thin g. The fact that we never know thin gness
directly, and if we kn ow it at all, then o nly vaguely and thus require the work - this fact
pro ves indirectly th at in the wor k's work-being th e ha ppeni ng of truth, th e opening up
o r disclosure of wha t is, is at work.
• • •
Truth, as th e clearing and concealing of what is, ha ppen s in be ing composed, as a poet
composes a poem . All art, as the letti ng h ap pen of the advent of the tr uth of what
is, is, as such, essentially poetry . Th e nature of a rt , on which bo th the art work and the
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artist depend, is the sening-itself-into- work of truth. It is due to a rt's poet ic natu re
that, in the midst of what is, art brea ks open a n open place, in whose openness every-
thing is other tha n usual. By virtue o f the projected sketch set int o the work of the
unconcealcdnc ss of what is, which cas ts itself toward us, everyth ing ordi nary and hith-
erto existing becomes an unbeing. Th is unbeing has lost the capacity to give and keep
being as measure . Th e curious fact here is that the work in no way affects hithe rto
existing entities by causal connections. The working of the work d oes no t consist in the
ta king effect o f a cause. It lies in a change, happening fro m o ut o f the work , of the
unco ncealedness of what is, and this mean s, of Being.
Poet ry, ho wever, is not an a imless ima gining of whimsicalities an d not a fligh t of
mere notions and fancies into the realm of the unreal. What poet ry, as illuminating
project ion, unfold s of uncon cealedn ess an d projects ahea d int o the design of the
figure, is the Open which poetry let s happen, and indeed in such a way that only now, in
the midst of beings, the Ope n brings beings to shine and ring out. If we fix o ur vision
on the nat ure of the work and its connection with the happening of the truth of what
is, it becom es quest ionab le whether the na ture of poetry, and this means at the same
time t he nat ure of projection , can be adeq uately though t o f in terms of the power o f
imagination.
Th e nat ure o f poetry, which has now been ascertained very broadly - but not on that
acco unt vaguely, may here be kept firm ly in mind as something worthy of questioning,
something tha t still has to be thought throu gh.
If all art is in essence poe try, t hen the arts of architecture, painting, sculpture, and
music must be tra ced back to poesy. Th at is pure a rbit ra riness. It certainly is. as lo ng as
we mean that those arts are varieties of the art of lang uage, if it is perm issible to
characterize poesy by tha t easily misiutcrpretable title. But poesy is only one mod e of
the ligh ting projection of truth, i.e., o f poetic composition in this wider sense. Never-
theless, the linguistic work, the poem in the nar rower sense, has a privileged position in
the domain of the arts.
To sec this, onl y the right concept of lan gua ge is needed . In the current view, lan-
guage is held to be a kind of co mmunicatio n. It serves for verbal exchange and agree-
ment, and in general for co mmunicating. But lan guage is not only and no t primarily an
audible and written expression of what is to be com municated. It not on ly puts forth in
words an d statements what is overtly or cover tly intended to be comm unicated ; lan-
gu age alone brings wha t is, as something that is, int o the O pen for the first time, Where
there is no language, as in the being of stone, plant, an d animal, there is also no
openness of what is, and conseq uently no openness eith er o f that which is no t a nd of
the empty.
Langu age, by na ming beings for the first time, first brings beings to word and to
ap pearance. Only this nami ng nomina tes beings to their being/rom our o/ their being.
Such saying is a projecting o f the clearing, in which anno uncement is made of what it
is that beings co me int o the Open as. Projectin g is the release of a throw by which
unconce aledness submits an d infuses itself int o what is as suc h. This projective
a nno uncement forthwith becomes a renunciation of all the dim co nfusio n in which
what is veils an d withd raws itself
Projective saying is poet ry: the saying of world and earth, the saying o f the aren a o f
their con flict and th us of the place of all nearn ess an d remoteness of the gods. Poetry
is the saying of the unconcealedness of what is. Actual lang uage at any given moment
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T H E ORI G I N OF TH E WORK O F A RT
is the happening of this saying, in which a peo ple's world hist oricall y arises for it and
the earth is preserved as that which remains closed. Projective saying is saying which, in
prepari ng the sayable, simultaneously brin gs the unsayable as such into a world. In
suc h saying, the co ncepts of an histo rica l people's nature, i.e., of its belo nging to world
history, are fo rmed for tha t folk, before it.
Poet ry is thoug ht of here in so broad a sense and at the same time in such intimate
unity o f being with lan guage and word , that we m ust leave open whet her art , in all its
modes fro m arc hitecture to poesy, exhausts the na ture of poet ry.
Language itself is poetry in the essen tial sense. But since language is the happening
in which for man beings first disclose themselves to him each time as beings, poesy - or
poetry in the narrower sense - is the most origina l fonn o f poetry in the essential sense.
Language is not poetry because it is the primal poesy; rather, poesy takes place in
lang uage beca use lang uage preserves the original nat ure of poe try. Building a nd plastic
crea tion, on the other hand , always happen alread y, and ha ppen onl y, in the Open o f
saying and naming. It is tbe Open that pervad es and guides them. But for this very
reason they rema in their own ways and mod es in which tru th o rders itself into wo rk.
They are an ever special poe tizing within the clearing of what is, which has already
hap pened unnoticed in lan guage.
Art , as the sett ing-into-wo rk of truth, is poet ry. Not only the crea tion of the wo rk is
poetic, but equ ally poetic, tho ugh in its own way, is the preserving of the work; for a
work is in actual effect as a work only when we remo ve ourselves fro m ou r common -
place ro utine an d move into what is d isclosed by the work, so as to bring ou r own
nature itself to take a stand in the tru th of what is.
Th e nature of ar t is poetry. The natu re of poetry, in tum, is the founding of truth.
We understand founding here in a tripl e sense: founding as besto wing, fo unding as
gro unding, and found ing as beginn ing. Found ing, however, is actual only in preserv-
ing. Thus to each mod e of fo unding there corresponds a mod e o f preservin g. We can
d o no more now than 10 present this st ructure of the natu re of ar t in a few stro kes, and
even this on ly to the exte nt that the earl ier cha racterizat ion of the nature of the wo rk
offers an initial hin t.
Th e setting-int o-wo rk of t ruth th rusts up the unfam ilia r and extra ordinary and at
the same time th rusts down the o rdinary a nd what we believe to be such. The truth that
d iscloses itself in the work can never be p roved or derived from what went before. What
went before is refu ted in its excl usive reali ty by the work. What a n fou nds can therefore
never be com pensated and made up for by wha t is already present and available.
Fo und ing is an overflow, an end owing, a besto wal.
Th e poetic projection of truth that sets itself into wo rk as figure is also never carried
o ut in the direc tio n of an indeterminate void. Rath er, in the work , truth is thrown
toward the co ming preserver s, that is, toward an histori cal gro up of men . What is t hus
cast forth is, however, never an ar bitrary demand. G enuinely poet ic projection is the
opening up or di sclosure o f tha t in to which h uma n being as histo rical is alread y cast.
This is the earth and, for an historical people, its earth, the sejf-clo slng gro und on
which it rest s together with everyth ing that it alread y is, thou gh still hidden fro m Itself
It is, ho wever, its world, which prevails in virt ue o f the relati on of hu man being to the
unconcealed ness of Being. For this reaso n, everything with which man is en dowed
must , in the project ion, be drawn up from the closed gro und and expressly set upon
this gro und. In this way the gro und is first gro unded as the bearing ground.
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All creation, because it is such a drawing-up, is a drawing, as of water from a spring. of what is, in the work. To originate someth ing by a leap, to bring something into being
Modern subjectivism. to be sure, immediately misinterprets creation, tak ing it as the from out of the source of its nature in a founding leap - this is what the word origin
self-sovereign subject's performance of genius. Th e founding of truth is a founding not (German Ursprung, literally, primal leap) mean s.
only in the sense of free bestowal, but at the same time found ation in the sense of this Th e origin of the work of art - that is, the origin of both the creators and the
gro und-laying ground ing. Poetic projection comes from No thing in this respect, that it preservers. which is to say of a people's historical existence, is art. Th is is so because art
never takes its gift from the ordinary and traditional. But it never comes from Nothing is by nature an origin: a distinctive way in which truth comes into being, that is,
in that what is projected by it is only the withheld vocation of the historical being of becomes historical.
man itself. We inquire into the nat ure of art. Why do we inquire in this way? We inquire in this
Bestowing and groundi ng have in themselves the unmediated chara cter of what we way in ord er to be able to ask more truly whether art is or is not an origin in our
call a beginning. Yet this unmediated characte r of a beginning, the peculiarity of a lea p historical existence, whether and under what condi tions it can and must be an origin.
ou t of the unmcdiablc, does not exclude but rathe r includes the fact that the beginning Such reflection cannot force art and its coming-to -be. But th is reflective knowledge is
prepares itself for the longest time and wholly inconspicuously. A genuine beginning, the preliminar y and therefore indispensable preparation for the becoming of art . Only
as a leap, is always a head start, in which everything to come is already leaped over, such knowledge prepares its space for art , their way for the creators, their location for
even if as something disguised. Th e beginnin g already contains the end latent within the preservers.
itself. A genuine beginning, however. has nothing of the neophyte character of the In such knowledge, which can only grow slowly, the question is decided whether art
primit ive. The primitive, because it lacks the bestowing, grounding leap and head start, can be an origin and then must be a head start, or whethe r it is to remain a mere
is always futureless. It is not capable of releasing anything more from itself becau se it appendix and then can only be carried along as a routine cultural phenomenon.
conta ins nothing more than rbat in which it is caught. Are we in our existence historically at the origin? Do we know, which means do we
A beginning, on the contrary, always contains the undisclosed abundan ce of the give heed to, the nature of the origin? Or, in our relation to art, do we still merely make
unfamiliar and extraordinary, which means that it also contains strife with the familiar appeal to a cultivated acquaintance with the pa st?
and ord ina ry. Art as poetry is foundin g, in the third sense of instigation of the strife of For this either-or and its decision there is an infallible sign. H6ldertin, the poet -
truth: founding as beginning. Always when that which is as a whole demands, as what whose work still confronts the Germans as a test to be stood - named it in saying:
is, itself, a grounding in openness, art attai ns to its histor ical natu re as foundation. This
foundation happene d in the West for the first time in Greece. What was in the future to Schwer vcrlasst
be called Being was set into work, setting the standa rd. The realm of beings thus was nahe dem Ursprung wobnet, den Ort.
ope ned up was then transformed into a being in the sense of God's creation. This
happened in the Middle Ages. This kind of being was again transformed at the begin- Reluctan tly
ning and in the course of the modem age. Beings became objects that could be con- that which dwells near its origin departs.
trolled and seen through by calculation. At each time a new and essential world arose. ('The Journey,' verses 18- 19)
At each time the openness of what is had to be cstablished in beings themselves, by the Translat ed by A lberl Hofs tadter
fixing in place of trut h in figure. At each time there hap pened unconcea tcdncss of what
is. Unconcealedness sets itself into work, a setting which is accomplished by art.
Whenever art happens - that is, whenever there is a beginning - a thru st enters
history, history either begins or starts over again. History means here not a sequence in
time of events of whatever sort, however importan t. History is the transporting of a
people into its a ppointed task as entrance into that people's endowment.
Art is the setting-into-work of truth. In this proposition an essential amb iguity is
hidden, in which truth is at once the subject and the object of the setting. But subject
and object are unsuitable names here. Th ey keep us from thinkin g precisely this
amb iguo us nature, a task tha t no longer belongs to this consideration. Art is historical,
and as historical it is the creative preserving of trut h in the work. Art happen s as
poetry. Poetry is founding in the triple sense of bestowing, grounding, and beginning.
Art, as founding. is essentially histo rical. This means not only that art has a history in
the extern al sense that in the cour se of time it, too, appears alo ng with many other
things, and in the process changes and passes away and offers changing aspects for
historio logy, Art is history in the essential sense that it gro unds history.
Art lets truth originate. Art, founding preserving, is the spring that leaps to the truth

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