To begin with, two artworks, one visual, one literary. (We may observe in passing the predicament of "beginning with two' intimated by Jean-Luc Nancy: I am about to suggest that each text can be read as an attempt to present its own essence, that is art "as such'; yet in the attempt to present itself "as such', "art' immediately finds itself consigned to its own ineluctable plurality [visual, literary, musical], that is to "arts'.)¹