forth into the open region and thus placed, that is, set, within that which towers into the open region as self-secluding and sheltering.
The strife that is brought into the rift and thus set back into the earth and thus fixed in place is the figure [Gestalt]. Createdness of the work means truth's being fixed in place in the figure. Figure is the structure in whose shape the rift composes itself. This composed rift is the fugue of truth's shining. What is here called figure [Gestalt] is always to be thought in terms of the particular placing [Stellen] and enframing [Ge-stell] as which the work occurs when it sets itself up and sets itself forth. {GA 5: 52}
In the creation of a work, the strife, as rift, must be set back into the earth, and the earth itself must be set forth and put to use as self-secluding. Such use, however, does not use up or misuse the earth as matter, but rather sets it free to be nothing but itself. This use of the earth is a working with it that, to be sure, looks like the employment of matter in handicraft. Hence the illusion that artistic creation is also an activity of handicraft. It never is. But it is at all times a use of the earth in the fixing in place of truth in the figure. In contrast, the making of equipment never directly effects the happening of truth. The production of equipment is finished when a material has been so formed as to be ready for use. For equipment to be ready means that it is released beyond itself, to be used up in usefulness.
Not so when a work is created. This becomes clear in the light of the second characteristic, which may be introduced here.
The readiness of equipment and the createdness of the work agree in this, that in each case something is produced. Yet in contrast to all other modes of production, the work is distinguished by being created so that its createdness is part of the created work. But does not this hold true for everything brought forth, indeed for anything that has in any way come to be? Everything brought forth surely has this endowment of having been brought forth, if it has any endowment at all. Certainly. However, in the work, createdness