Abstract ♦ Artistic representations of death can be divided into two groups; the communal (mythological) depictions of death are a condensed imprint of public opinion, beliefs and myths, while the individual death image is a version of the author's experience of loss, sometimes completely unique and personal, sometimes embedded in historical-mythological schemata. Some artists, such as Nicolas Poussin, have discovered, close to their death, the particular impact of the fear of death, of coping with death, on art, the "wonderful trembling of time". The proximity of death - sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously - had an exhilarating effect on their artistic output. Charlotte Salomon and Felix Nussbaum knew full well that they were in mortal danger, but chose creative activity over collapse. Artists who were addicted to chemical substances or suffered from severe recurrent depression (John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Edvard Munch, Hajnóczy Péter), instinctively turned to drugs because they put them in a near-death state and experienced the facilitating effect on their productivity, while often hovering between life and death. Authors (Heinrich von Kleist, José Rizal) who knew exactly when they were going to die saw their death and their encounter with death as a kind of grandiose spectacle, and thus predetermined their own history of reception. Artists suffering from long agonies of serious illness (Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, Frigyes Karinthy, Péter Esterházy) constantly monitored their physical condition, others (Ferdinand Hodler, Annie Leibovitz) followed the agony of their immediate family through art. From the very beginning, the music - in lamentations and requiems - contained the "notes of death", which became a poignant force when the composer wrote about his own death. In the last decades, contemporary artists have emerged who openly dedicate a period of their lives or their entire lives to the representation of death, thus creating death-positive art. Arnold Böcklin, who lived his whole life close to death, created in his imagination and on canvas the 'island of the dead' from Greek mythology, and designated his own burial place in a corner of the island.

Abstract ♦ Artistic representations of death can be divided into two groups; the communal (mythological) depictions of death are a condensed imprint of public opinion, beliefs and myths, while the individual death image is a version of the author's experience of loss, sometimes completely unique and personal, sometimes embedded in historical-mythological schemata. Some artists, such as Nicolas Poussin, have discovered, close to their death, the particular impact of the fear of death, of coping with death, on art, the "wonderful trembling of time". The proximity of death - sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously - had an exhilarating effect on their artistic output. Charlotte Salomon and Felix Nussbaum knew full well that they were in mortal danger, but chose creative activity over collapse. Artists who were addicted to chemical substances or suffered from severe recurrent depression (John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Edvard Munch, Hajnóczy Péter), instinctively turned to drugs because they put them in a near-death state and experienced the facilitating effect on their productivity, while often hovering between life and death. Authors (Heinrich von Kleist, José Rizal) who knew exactly when they were going to die saw their death and their encounter with death as a kind of grandiose spectacle, and thus predetermined their own history of reception. Artists suffering from long agonies of serious illness (Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, Frigyes Karinthy, Péter Esterházy) constantly monitored their physical condition, others (Ferdinand Hodler, Annie Leibovitz) followed the agony of their immediate family through art. From the very beginning, the music - in lamentations and requiems - contained the "notes of death", which became a poignant force when the composer wrote about his own death. In the last decades, contemporary artists have emerged who openly dedicate a period of their lives or their entire lives to the representation of death, thus creating death-positive art. Arnold Böcklin, who lived his whole life close to death, created in his imagination and on canvas the 'island of the dead' from Greek mythology, and designated his own burial place in a corner of the island.

Abstract ♦ This article discusses some aspects of Heidegger's interpretation of art, based on the ideas expressed in his study The Origin of the Work of Art. On the one hand, it touches on a Heideggerian conception that takes the interpretation of artin a different direction, making it clear by eliminating established notions of appearance, and on the other, it outlines Heidegger's interpretation of Vincent van Gogh's painting A pair of shoes, which was made particularly famous by the controversy surrounding it. For Heidegger's interpretation of art does not count on a fundamental revision of the basic aesthetic concepts, but rather on the expansion of the experience of art into an experience of truth. I will also present Heidegger's highly perceptive interpretation of the original peasant world, as reviewed by the American philosopher and literary critic Fredric Jameson.