Letter 1: L'art pour l'art

The thing about art...

This all started when I decided to learn the art of writing again.

“Don’t try to understand it. Just keep telling the story.”

I just finished watching Asteroid City, and it’s one of the most visually pleasing and giddy movies I’ve seen. I felt like a child, experiencing for the first time the joy of watching people move around on a screen and hearing voices coming from tiny little boxes. It felt good.

I might have forgotten everything from my CCA classes in JSS2, but I will never forget the one about the function of arts—mostly because they all end with the -ive suffix: educative, instructive, informative. Halfway through the movie, I realized there’s no central theme, idea, or lesson. It was just there, carrying me along with the aesthetics and soothing acting, and it was betraying everything I’ve come to expect from a story: a clear struggle, black vs. white, good vs. evil.

Then it happened. One of the characters came to my rescue with the line, “Don’t try to understand it. Just keep telling the story.” And it all made sense. There is no central theme, lesson, or idea in this story. There are no dots for me to connect or understand. All I have to do is keep watching them as they tell a story. Their story. The story of an alien. The story of a father keeping his children’s mother’s death a secret for three days. The story of child geniuses. The story of weird affairs. The story of broken homes. Of an understudy finally getting his moment to shine. The story of cut scenes. A story. Any story.

But Asteroid City made me wonder if trying to understand what art is—if there is a central idea the artist is trying to communicate, if there is a greater purpose to it—is futile. Maybe all there is to art is what we attach to it, what it communicates to us. Not what the artist intends or doesn’t intend to communicate.

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What’s the purpose of art? A simple question, yet enough to trigger an unraveling. Why do I write? Because I can. Because I have to—it is the only way to stop the incessant screaming in my head, to give in to the urge to do something, create something. It’s a way for me to be more than. Because it is the only medium of expression I need to ensure my immortality. So, is the purpose of art merely to mirror the artist?

At first, I thought I could escape this by simply saying: art for art’s sake—L’art pour l’art. But I did some reading, and it felt too shallow. Too thin. Almost like an antithesis of what art itself is. In the words of poet, critic, and essayist Théophile Gautier, “Art for art’s sake means, for its adepts, the pursuit of pure beauty—without any preoccupations.”

And I do think art can be created just for the purpose of that particular oeuvre existing. Created in the pursuit of pure beauty—aestheticism. But that shouldn’t be the only reason. Art doesn’t have to teach a lesson or be some sort of social commentary. It can simply be art because it pushes the boundary of possibility. Because it drives even a single person to push themselves further. Art needs no justification. It needs to serve no political, didactic, or other end. Morality shouldn’t be implied in art. It can exist just to inspire people.

I watched the now-cancelled Netflix show Kaos, and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen. Its masterful and bold retelling of Greek mythology moved me. And its portrayal of the Greek gods was perfect. Zeus’s blatant insecurity and the way his mood shifts from playful to tyrannical is just exquisite—Jeff Goldblum did a great job there. From a utilitarian view, the show doesn’t have any value. It’s simply a modern retelling of a tale as old as time. Whatever morals or political parallels it intends to draw with today’s society are irrelevant because these parallels already exist and are well-known. So why should it even exist? I guess Netflix felt the same way because they canceled the show barely two months after the first season. But Kaos is a bold project, and maybe if the whole world believed in l’art pour l’art, that would be enough reason for more seasons of the show to exist.

Perhaps the best way to define l’art pour l’art without crippling the moral, political, and commentary role art plays in society while trying to dissociate form from content to justify the perceived inutility of art in a utilitarian context is: “Art for art’s sake means, for its adepts, the pursuit of pure beauty—physical, intellectual, and spiritual.”

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“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written.” – Oscar Wilde

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L’art pour l’art represents the idea that art has no obligation to be moral, political, or social commentary. That art existing in and of itself is enough. It is an attempt to divorce the form of art from its content. So, the question that should be asked of art isn’t, “What does it say?” but rather, “How did it say it?” And at first, that can be impressive—an ingenious way of turning the tables on a capitalist and utilitarian society that deemed art to be useless due to its lack of objective material value, its perceived inutility. Albeit not wrong, it’s still a flawed way of seeing art.

Right now, I think there is no need or requirement for art to serve just a singular purpose or fit neatly with moral, political, or social frameworks. Art, merely by virtue of its existence, is enough. Art, for art’s sake. And I believe the dissonance flows from ignorance of the impact art has by merely existing. Art can exist for its sake because its mere existence impacts and inspires people, and maybe that’s enough.

The meaning of art is an obsolete question because it seeks to confine it to the limits of a definition. And like the words of Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “to define is to limit.” Art cannot be confined. And it shouldn’t because the meaning of art is as expansive as the viewer’s (or reader’s) imagination allows. It can be completely divorced from the artist’s original intent, yet it can be a mirror of the complexities of the creator.

The purpose of art lies somewhere between pure beauty and personal resonance—an experience that doesn’t need a clear ‘message’ for it to be considered significant. Instead, however finished the artist might consider it, it is nothing but a canvas inviting the viewer or reader to create their own meaning.

Art for art’s sake, then, isn’t a limitation; it’s a freedom. It gives art permission to be a living, evolving experience—one that provokes, inspires, or simply exists. I see art not as a medium that must be understood but as one that can simply be felt. And perhaps that is its truest purpose: to be encountered, shaped, and redefined with every new experience, leaving us with something both deeply personal and profoundly universal. Art, then, can be both a portrait and a mirror. It can exist for itself, yet can be interpreted in infinite ways.

With love,

Fikayo.