Martin Heidegger and the Great Art of Ancient Greece

Art, and especially the art of ancient Greece, plays an important role in Martin Heidegger’s later works. The first work in which he separately discusses the requirements of his philosophical thinking about art is The Origin of the Work of Art. His analysis of Greek art- referred to by him often as the “great art”- is one of the most brilliant and influential examples of the philosophical thinking on art; nonetheless, and instead of being an image of the Greek art, his interpretations tend to show how Heidegger traced his philosophical concerns in that art. Indeed, one could regard Heidegger’s interpretation of Greek art to be another version of authentic art. In this article, on the basis of what Heidegger offers in The Origin of the Work of Art especially about Greek art and through searching his other works, the characteristics of this sort of art are discussed by classifying them into 5 basic categories: namely, the connection with disclosure of being and the artwork as the truth of being; the struggle between earth and world in the artwork; establishment of the world and the artwork as the establishers or constituents of a nation or a community; the reception and common conservation of the artwork; the pre-aesthetical or anti-aesthetical condition of the artwork.