Abstract

This essay examines the proximity between Heidegger's philosophy of art, as developed in "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1935/36) and the posthumously published Klee Notizen, and Paul Klee's own theoretical writings, in particular "Wege des Naturstudiums," "Schöpferische Konfession," and "Über die moderne Kunst." Taking as its point of departure Heidegger's well-documented esteem for Klee, whom he placed above Picasso and in whose work he is reported to have perceived a Wende, the analysis is structured around three thematic correspondences: the antagonism of earth and world, the conception of art as a making-visible or unconcealing of what withdraws from ordinary appearance, and the role of the artist in the bringing-forth of the work. I argue that Klee's pre-existing use of Welt and Erde as polar forces underlying the genesis of form is not a merely lexical anticipation of Heidegger's terminology but reflects a deeper affinity in their respective conceptions of artistic truth, with Klee's dictum that art "does not reproduce the visible but makes visible" standing in close parallel to Heidegger's account of the work as the setting-itself-to-work of aletheia. The essay further identifies two principal divergences. Where Klee locates the strife of earth and world in the principle of creation operative throughout the genesis of the work, Heidegger situates this strife within the finished work itself; and where Klee assigns the artist a quasi-maternal, generative role within a cosmological order, Heidegger reduces the artist to technitēs, a passage through which truth establishes itself, although his later remarks on Klee as an epoch-making originator complicate this position.