Art for art's sake Art for art's sake "Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan from the early 19th century, "l'art pour l'art", and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, or utilitarian function. Such works are sometimes described as "autotelic", from the Greek "autoteles", "complete in itself", a concept that has been expanded to embrace "inner-directed" or "self-motivated" human beings. The term is sometimes used commercially. A Latin version of this phrase ("ARS GRATIA ARTIS") is used as a motto by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appears
Latin influence in English tribes, who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain (what is known as the Continental or Zero Period): "anchor", "butter", "camp", "cheese", "chest", "cook", "copper", "devil", "dish", "fork", "gem", "inch", "kitchen", "mile", "mill", "mint" (coin), "noon", "pillow", "pound" (unit of weight), "punt" (boat), "sack", "street", "wall", "wine". Cognates of virtually all of these English words exist in the other Germanic