The author argues that James McNeil Whistler's theory of “art for art's sake”…

Abstract art is generally taken to mean painting and sculpture by artists who are not trying to represent any specific object. In my opinion, however, all art is abstract to some degree: that is, it is removed from the perceived elements of nature. The sculpture of ancient Greece, of Egypt. and of primitive tribes, for example, used simplified, often geometricised forms. The term abstract art, therefore, should be used to refer to a main line of development that only began in this century with the desire in modern art to express inner life in pictures. Abstract art's beginnings can be traced to James McNeil Whistler's ‘art for art's sake' theory.