Martin Heidegger sees the great work of art as something that opens up a world, as something that takes us out of the ordinary. More than this, he sees the work as something that connects us to this different world so that we may benefit, grow, and develop. He is not stating that the work of art merely allows us to see into this other world but that it connects us to it in a very direct and meaningful way, a way which allows us to see the truth and to be part of it.
Heidegger states that there is always a beginning when art happens as a thrust enters history so that history either starts over or begins in the first place:
History means here not a sequence in time of events of whatever sort, however important. History is the transporting of a people into its appointed task as entrance into that people's endowment (77).
Heidegger explains: "Art lets truth originate" (77). The other world into which we are allowed to enter through art is characterized by what Heidegger calls the Open, a term he derives from Rilke. He states that Rilke uses the term to refer to the whole draft to which all beings are given over. "Open" here means something that does not block off, which implies that most things do indeed "block off" and that poetry and art enable us to find a route to truth that is not blocked. Actually, as used by Heidegger, the term "open" has a slightly different meaning. He says that the Open admits but that this does not mean it grants access to something that has been closed off before:
To admit means to draw in and to fit into the unlightened whole of the drawings of the pure draft. Admittance, as the way the Open is, has the character of an including attraction, in the manner of the gravity of the pure forces. The less ventured beings are debarred from admittance into the pure draft, the more they belong within the great whole of the Open (Heidegger 107).
The world into which art allows entry is partia...