aestheticism

In the arts, the doctrine that holds art is an end in itself and does not need to have any moral, religious, political, or educational purpose. The French writer Théophile Gautier popularized the doctrine ‘l'art pour l'art’ (‘art for art's sake’) in 1832, and it was taken up in mid-19th-century France by the Symbolist poets and painters. It flourished in the English Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century. An emphasis on form rather than content in art remained influential in the West well into the 20th century.

The idea developed from the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant's view that art can only be judged by its own criteria and not by anything external to it.