Axis: Purpose of art — What is art for: to give pleasure, to reveal truth, or to transform the world?
Art does not have to be useful, moral, or militant: its sole end is beauty and the pleasure of form. To subordinate it to an external cause is to betray it and reduce it to a mere instrument.
Foundations and implications
↑ What grounds itA leaf — an application that grounds nothing further here.
↑ What grounds it
Beauty
If beauty is nothing but the pleasure a form gives, then art has no end other than that pleasure itself, without having to serve truth or a cause. Subjective beauty grounds art for art's sake: the work is sufficient unto itself, and subordinating it to an external end would only debase it.
↓ What it implies
A leaf — an application that grounds nothing further here.