art for art's sake

Cultural  

1. A slogan meaning that the beauty of the fine arts is reason enough for pursuing them — that art does not have to serve purposes taken from politics, religion, economics, and so on. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde argued for the doctrine of art for art's sake.

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Ars Gratia Artis, the motto of the film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), is a Latin version of “art for art's sake.”

Example Sentences

“I mean, I get it. Filmmaking is expensive. Then also, in America, we don’t do art for art’s sake. But I feel fortunate. I’ve gotten to make a lot of films in the last years. People who are going to make these films are either up for it or they’re not going to get involved. If an A24’s up for making a film about two ceramicists, that’s pretty good.”

From Seattle Times

Along with such contemporary activist-authors as Isabel Allende, Barbara Kingsolver, Tommy Orange, Alice Walker, Colson Whitehead and many others, Morrison was known for novels that refused to draw a line between art for art’s sake and art that promotes social justice.

From Los Angeles Times

And I feel that institutionally, in art school, we were taught that art-making is almost a passive act, separate from the artist’s experience — the idea being “art for art’s sake.”

From Los Angeles Times

“I’m still a little uncomfortable with calling myself an artist. It denotes elitism, a certain kind of individuality, as though you make art for art’s sake, for yourself, not to make a difference.”

From Washington Post

The rejection of art for art’s sake is a sort of horseshoe idea, one that brings together the far left — autocrats from Joseph Stalin to Mao Zedong have rejected art as anything other than a tool to indoctrinate the masses — and the consumerist right, which thinks art is only as valuable as the dollars it produces.

From Washington Post