Heidegger, Gadamer, Klee : on word and image

This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I have three goals: first, to say a few words about the most general form of the rather specific question that I want to address: second, to give some indications of the stakes of this question: and third, to point to a few pivotal moments in the philosophical history of this question. In the second part, I take a close look at Heidegger's encounter with Paul Klee. In 1956, Heidegger saw an exhibition of 88 paintings by Klee and those paintings had such a powerful impact that Heidegger would write in his notes that "something never before seen becomes visible in them", and he would tell friends that because of what he saw in Klee he would need to write a "pendant" to the Origin of the Work of Art. Despite the immense enthusiasm for what he saw in Klee, Heidegger would, by 1960, abandon these plans because he came to believe that the space for the appearance of art was closed in our historical present. In the third part, I look at what I take to be two productive avenues for exploring the possibilities that Heidegger would abandon. The first I find in Gadamer's engagement with the paintings of Werner Scholz. The second opening I will try to show in the paintings of Julius Bissier. Here too I indicate why it is that gesture is such a fruitful notion for pursuing the larger issues of the relation of word and image.