Sebastian Kanally

The Truth Of Carousing Peasants Becomes Disclosed In this paper, I attempt to reconstruct the central points of Martin Heidegger’s theory of the work of art, and argue that Adriaen van Ostade's 1634 painting, "Carousing Peasants In a Rustic Interior," is a perfect lens to see the strength and validity of Heidegger's understanding of art. Heidegger's philosophy of art contains three major components, each of which I examine and argue is manifest in Ostade's painting. The three components the work of art reveals are the following: firstly, a tension is created between "earth" and "world" by instigating what Heidegger calls "strife." Secondly, the work of art reveals its truth as unconcealment or, and thirdly, art is poesis; art, through language, produces beings that organically unfold out of themselves. Adriaen van Ostade's "Carousing Peasants In a Rustic Interior" is a painting from the Dutch golden age of the 17th century. The painting illustrates a few peasants congregating in a small, humble and partly lighted dwelling at the end of a day that reveals an interesting illustration of human solidarity. In this paper I argue that Ostade's painting, in the way Heidegger articulates in his theory, speaks to the observer, such that it reveals some more fundamental truth than a static depiction of peasant life. Heidegger's theory or art offers modern life a conception that makes essential the setting forth a meaningful world of intelligibility that ought to be taken seriously. This theory applied to Ostade's painting reveals the truth of peasants’ lives and what it may communicate to us as observers of this work of art in 2017. Kanally, Sebastian The Truth of Carousing Peasants Becomes Disclosed. Key Words: Heidegger, Art, Truth, Unconcealment, Solidarity, Painting, World, Strife, and Peasants.