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
Ars Bonifacii to incorporate non-Latin terms and names (specifically, some Greek terminology and Hebrew names) in the Latin grammatical system. In general, Boniface's Latin was heavily influenced by Aldhelm; in 1931, Paul Lehmann even identified the grammar as having been written by Aldhelm. Ars Bonifacii The Ars Bonifacii is the title given to a Latin grammar ascribed to Saint Boniface. The text survives in three manuscripts. The latter two date from the late eighth-early ninth centuries, and both also contain the grammar of Tatwine, though Vivien Law notes that the two did not share a transmission history and came to the two