Originb means here that from where and through which a thing is what it is and how it is. That which something is, as it is, we call its nature [Wesen]. The origin of something is the source of its nature. The question of the origin of the artwork asks about the source of its nature. According to the usual view, the work arises out of and through the activity of the artist. But through and from what is the artist thatc which he is? Through the work; for the German proverb "the work praises the master" means that the work first lets the artist emerge as a master of art. The artist is the origin of the work. The work is the origin of the artist. Neither is without the other. Nonetheless neither is the sole support of the other. Artist and work are each, in themselves and in their reciprocal relation, on account of a third thing, which is prior to both; on account, that is, of that from which both artist and artwork take their names, on account of art.
As the artist is the origin of the work in a necessarily different way from the way the work is the origin of the artist, so it is in yet another way, quite certainly, that art is the origin of both artist and work. But can, then, art really be an origin? Where and how does art exist? Art – that is just a word
a Reclam edition, 1960. The project [Versuch] (1935-37) inadequate on account of the inappropriate use of the name "truth" for the still-withheld clearing and the cleared. See "Hegel and the Greeks" in Pathmarks, ed. W. McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 332ff.; "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking" in Time and Being, trans. J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 70 (footnote). – Art the use of the bringing-forth of the clearing of the self-concealing in the Ereignis – the hidden given form.
Bringing-forth and forming; see "Sprache und Heimat" in Denkerfabrungrn 1910-1976 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1983), pp. 87-111.
b Reclam edition, 1960. Capable of being misunderstood this talk of "origin."
c Reclam edition, 1960: he who he is.
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