He argues that art is not only a way of expressing the element of truth in a culture, but the means of creating it and providing a springboard from which "that which is" can be revealed.

Likewise, the resulting work must be considered in the context of the world in which it exists, not that of its artist.

"[8] The reason Heidegger selects a pair of peasant shoes painted by Vincent van Gogh is to establish a distinction between artwork and other "things", such as pieces of equipment, as well as to open up experience through phenomenological description.

[10] "World" represents meaning which is disclosed, not merely the sum of all that is ready-to-hand for one being but rather the web of significant relations in which Dasein, or human being(s), exist (a table, for example, as part of the web of signification, points to those who customarily sit at it, the conversations once had around it, the carpenter who made it, and so on - all of which point to further and further things).

However, the very nature of art itself appeals to "Earth", as a function of art is to highlight the natural materials used to create it, such as the colors of the paint, the density of the language, or the texture of the stone, as well as the fact that everywhere an implicit background is necessary for every significant explicit representation.

Once the culture has changed, the temple no longer is able to actively engage with its surroundings and becomes passive—an art object.

While the notion appears contradictory, Heidegger is the first to admit that he was confronting a riddle—one that he did not intend to answer as much as to describe in regard to the meaning of art.

Critics of Heidegger claim that he employs circuitous arguments and often avoids logical reasoning under the ploy that this is better for finding truth.

(In fact, Heidegger is employing a revised version of the phenomenological method; see the hermeneutic circle).

Problems with both Heidegger and Schapiro's texts are further discussed in Jacques Derrida's Restitutions - On Truth to Size[12] and in the writing of Babette Babich.

Heidegger's notions about art have made a relevant contribution to discussions on artistic truth.

Historian and political scientist Richard Wolin[13] engaged with Heidegger's "ever-mounting respect and critical engagement" with "absolute idealism,"[14] particularly in the context of the Heideggerian revival of a pre-Socratic unity of opposites, artist "state founding," poet-legislators, the Herrenvolk as metaphysical peoples, and concealment vis-à-vis "truth in its nature is untruth" in Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology (2023).