L'art pour l'art by Geronimo Cristobal

L'art pour l'art
by Geronimo Cristobal

We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake [...] and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: — but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem's sake

-Edgar Allan Poe-

Most people would probably express dissent over the statement which is to be the title of my article today. For one thing, the issue is no longer the favorite topic of student activists today. I guess they are more concerned with instigating tension and with this, the stir that the Art for Art sake movement made is no more.

But in deep retrospect, I still believe of art that exist for art sake. From how I view things, everything will become a piece of art for art sake at some point of existence. Life, for example can be treated like art and the meaning of life can depend on living it and not confined to the conditions that created it. But on the other hand, there is probable cause to believe that upholding this bohemian motto may offer only a tendentious meaning and that it may also be shallow. Light for example exists not because we can see it, but because we can see the things it touches. But what it illuminates is only proof of its existence. There is always an absolute definition to an absolute existence, therefore, light which may be associated with warmth and eyesight will never be defined by anything in the end but by "light" alone, in the categorical state of the matter.

So what is art? Art, if by any chance there arises a dillema in the classroom discussion that needs to be cleared up by giving an end to it, is in the shape of a circle, my friend. There is no way to define it but by becoming enclosed by it. Art is Circle and the point which may seem like the end may only be the beginning.

See? Art becomes Circle when it serves no other but Art.

ART IS CIRCLE because ART IS CIRCLE! Witness how Art is defined by shape! - "L'art pour L' art"

"Art should be independent of all claptrap and should stand alone [...] and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism and the like"

Quotes by Wikipedia