The Art of Truth

In The Truth in Painting Derrida insists that Heidegger s treatment of a famous picture by Van Gogh marks a moment of pathetic collapse While we would agree we would insist that this example does not render Heidegger s entire philosophy of art suspect Instead if his reading of Van Goghs painting is derisory and symptomatic it is nonetheless significant if only insofar as It provides an indication of Heidegger s underestimation of the plastic arts in favor of the elevation of poetry an underestimation that may be corrected in light of what we might regard as his true philosophy of art Our aim then is to see (with some help from Derrida) what Heidegger could have seen in looking at Van Goghs Old Shoes were the work not reduced to an illustration in a presentation whose destination is poetry not painting What in other words would Van Goghs painting look like were we to view it in light of The Origin of the Work of Art assuming that the latter does not require insistence on the priority of linguistic work but on the creation of a truth that belongs to the Earth in the case in point as the ground of painting)