Word.ws English Dictionary

art for art's sake

art for art's sake noun: art with no function; whose only purpose is beauty.

Noun

art for art's sake (uncountable)

  1. (slogan) Art with no function; whose only purpose is beauty.

Synonyms of art for art's sake

Origin of art for art's sake

Calque of French l'art pour l'art, a phrase credited to Théophile Gautier. See the Wikipedia article for more.

Questions about art for art's sake

What does art for art's sake mean?
Art for art's sake means art with no function; whose only purpose is beauty.
What part of speech is art for art's sake?
Art for art's sake is a noun.

Words near art for art's sake in the dictionary

  1. art directors
  2. art epic
  3. art epics
  4. art film
  5. art films
  6. art for art's sake
  7. art form
  8. art forms
  9. art galleries
  10. art gallery
  11. art gallery problem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: art for art's sake (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “art for art's sake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/art_for_art%27s_sake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.