  Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to present the deepest truths that emerge from the kind of personal struggle that existential phenomenology demands without thereby inadvertently supplying the public with another leveled-down formula to bandy about, a familiar catchphrase (like “language is the house of being”) that quickly becomes a superficial substitute for the insight it bespeaks. The problem, expressed metaphorically, is that receiving a souvenir from someone else’s journey makes a poor substitute for taking that voyage for oneself. Heidegger’s recognition of this difficulty helps explain why he seeks to show at least as much as to say what he takes to be art’s deepest truths in “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Indeed, the distinguishing mark of the later Heidegger’s “poetic” style comes from the fact that, after Being and Time, he is no longer content simply to construct arguments in relatively straightforward philosophical prose, but also begins to try to lead his audience performatively to see the phenomenon ultimately at issue for themselves. This is a large part of what makes Heidegger’s later works even more elusive and challenging for contemporary philosophical readers than Being and  Time.[51] Nonetheless, by drawing on Heidegger’s early as well as his later works, we can clearly understand the enduring philosophical challenge that his phenomenological approach to art seeks to surmount.