The Work of Art Revisited: Gadamer's Hermeneutic Concept of Gebilde

Following Heidegger, Gadamer elaborates the “work-being” of the work of art. At the core of his hermeneutic understanding of the work is a distinctive concept of Gebilde. Gadamer conceives this as a sensuous configuration embedded in the individual work as an organic whole that displays a dynamic unity while possessing the stability of an identifiable pattern of internal relations that confounds conventional distinctions between matter and form, ideality and reality, sensibility and intelligibility, identity and difference, created work and living being. As a pure appearance that transcends its material support, Gebilde exhibits the hermeneutic identity of a work that is recognized through those interpretations by which it comes to presence while surpassing them all. Therein lies the truth-claim of art that is one while being many. Because of its centrality to Gadamer’s philosophy of art, Gebilde deserves the more concentrated attention that this essay seeks to provide.