Métaphysique de l’œuvre d’art

By Cassirer the problem concerning the work of art is part of the more general problem of the “visibility” of the work as originary phenomenon. Unlike the symbolic forms of language, myth and knowledge, art is not a way of configuring the image of the world, rather it is something which stands on its own. Its basic character is the “estrangement”, the unrecognizableness, the loss of oneself and the other. Cassirer ascribes a peculiar feature to the aesthetic intuition: whereas the linguistic and mythical objectuality needs to break free from the sphere of expression, the aesthetic intuition must transcend expression, though remaining within it. In this root and matrix of expression it is possible to recognize the aesthetic vocation of the concept of “work”, a kind of archetypization of the Werk.