I was listening to a talk given by the late novelist Gore Vidal recently, and in it he made the comment that the well-known phrase “art for art’s sake” was, as he put it, “a meaningless notion.” Now, I know why many will think that doesn’t make any sense, that it’s some sort of circular logic, but I disagree with Vidal’s claiming it to be meaningless. By contrast I think it has great meaning but, like with so many other concepts rooted in a particular history, you have to know the context in which it first gained broad circulation in order to appreciate what it really means. And that context was the early years of Modernism.
When it emerged in Europe in the mid 19th century, modernism was a movement championed by artists themselves that sought to make art independent of serving extraneous causes, most of which had very little to do with art or artists. For centuries Before modernism, art was used in the service of other ideas. It was used to serve patriotism. It was used very often to serve religion. Art was used to reinforce the existing social order, drawing attention to the splendor, the high standing, and the presumed respectability of the wealthy and powerful.
Modern artists—that is, modern with capital M— wanted art to be independent of all those causes that, in using art, subordinated art to other concerns. That’s the context in which the phrase “art for arts sake” was first heard. It’s an assertion that art has its own power, its own identity, and its own justification. It’s a declaration of independence for the arts and for artists. It’s not a meaningless phrase.
It signified the conviction that, however art portrayed whatever it portrayed, it was valid on its own terms. If it didn’t look perfectly accurate or realistic that was ok because it didn’t have to. If it offended, that was ok too because it’s not answerable to any other institution. It and the artist who created it were independent and had to justify its expressions to no one.
It would be the psychological equivalent of me defiantly announcing that David was going to live for David from now on. That’s what art and artists boldly said as the Modern era began, and it let art run in a new direction that unleashed a torrent of creativity that is still with us. Indeed, it put individualistic creativity at the center of what art was all about and changed the role that artists played in society from that point on. A declaration of independence is never a meaningless notion.