The Origin of the Artwork According to Heidegger and its Relationship to Truth: A Phenomenological Reading of his Approach to Van Gogh's Painting “The Shoes”

Abstract

Heidegger, the leader of German existentialism, although critical of French existentialism, particularly as expressed by Sartre, remains faithful to his mentor Edmund Husserl by utilizing the "phenomenological method" to study the phenomena of thought and knowledge as lived experiences within our consciousness. He employs a "phenomenological interpretive" approach in his quest to uncover the history of existence. He directs this method towards artistic phenomena, bypassing the study of the artist's personality or the artistic creative process directly, and instead, he describes the artwork as a lived phenomenon. This is tied to his inquiry into existence, which questions the meaning of being and the essence of existence itself.

He considers the poet Hölderlin as his favorite, delivering lectures titled "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," where he not only analyzes the essence of poetry but also attempts to unveil the profound philosophical perspectives within poets' contemplations. He suggests that Hölderlin's elegies contain the fundamental ideas of his philosophy in poetic form.

Post-World War II, Heidegger sought common ground between thought and poetry or art, asserting that only philosophy and poetry can speak about nothingness. This led Heidegger to philosophically explore art for the first time, contemplating its essence deeply and laying the groundwork for a new philosophical analysis of aesthetic beauty.