Abstract

In this paper, Heidegger’s understanding of art is analysed with regard to the status of painting, for which I claim to be of equal status as poetry. Such claim is derived from Heidegger’s commentaries on Klee, which show that the essence of painting is not a presentation of beings, but the revelation of our grasp of Being. The same idea is analysed considering Heidegger’s short comment on Franz Marc from his early works, with the conclusion that Hedegger’s attack on an abstract painting is not the consequence of demand that painting should present us with some concrete being, some object. Finally, the specific status of poetry and painting indicate the new understanding of the image in Heidegger, which in return demands for the revision of the usual interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy of art.