In this article, points of contact between Mukařovský’s and Heidegger’s thinking about art are investigated. These points of contact are identified in the conception of deliberateness and non-deliberateness in Mukařovský and in the contest between the world and the earth in Heidegger. It is argued that these conceptions point to the treatment of a work as continually polarising; polarisation is related to the problematic of the durability of a work of art and of great art, so its character is ultimately normative. These results are finally briefly related to the question of art criticism.