The arts teach and moralise by their beauty alone, not by translating a philosophical or social formula. For the truly artistic person, painting has itself as it's purpose, which is quite enough.
It would nice to live in a world where art can just be art!
The magic question is, 'What for?' But art is not for anything. Art is the ultimate goal.
I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being... Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.
The real question is what to live for. And I can't answer it. Except another one of your records. And another chance for me to write. Art for art's sake, corny as that sounds.
Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.
Art is an end in itself; its values are intrinsic.
Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only - having no desire to teach.
The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything.
Art for art's sake. [Lat., Ars gratia artis.]
We need religion for religions's sake, morality for morality's sake and art for art's sake.
It's possible to make things that aren't just money-makers. Something wonderful for its own sake.
Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
Art has no end but its own perfection.
Art must be unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible to justify.
I just write the stuff that comes out of me, and then after that, I try to get it made. But I don't think, 'Will I get the money?' and 'Who's this made for?'
I'm in this whole flow of doing certain art pieces without commerce.
