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The Heideggerian interpretation of artl/-- the most radical transmutation of "esthetics" not only since Kant, but since the Greeks– –initially comes down to a simple question about the mode of being of the works: what kind of things are they? The answer preceded by a "reiteration" of the metaphysical definitions of the concept of the thing, especially the thing as composed of matter and form, makes art appear as the illumination of an "earth". All great artworks--plastic, musical, or poetic– –erect within the density of a specific earth a configuration (Gestalt) of "truth" or of uncovering. Art effects within being an entirely inaugural uncovering of Being. The artistic Gestalt is interpreted as the trace of a struggle (Streit) between a world, which is to say an historic dimension, and an earth or non-historical seat. The earth is no more the raw material existing in itself than the world is an assembly of clearly pre established forms. The Gestalt does not soar above a chaos or indetermination to which it might give shape. Its essence, says Heidegger, is to bring to light the "tearing-stroke" (Riss, a word which means crack, fissure, crevice, but also outline or tracing), which conflictually unites the historiality of the world and the a-historiality of the earth. The Riss restores to the earth, as it institutes in earth, and elaborates, the unceasing combat between world and earth.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-1055-3_7

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