Art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of l'art pour l'art (pronounced [laʁ puʁ laʁ]), a French slogan from the latter half of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that 'true' art is utterly independent of all social values and utilitarian functions, be they didactic, moral, or political. Such works are sometimes described as autotelic (from Greek: autoteles, 'complete in itself'), a concept also applied to "inner-directed" or "self-motivated" persons.