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Not entirely. This also requires HTML.

You know, I was going to write that it was a given since CSS is applied to a markup language so you need some sort of markup, and that you were being pedantic.

But then I thought it would be neat if someone were to make the Mona Lisa as ASCII art using only valid CSS, thus rendering a truly pure CSS version. I guess you could further argue that it isn't pure CSS because it also involves something to display the text.

You don't need HTML at all. Using pseudo elements and taking advantage of browser assumptions you can make HTML-free webpages:

http://css-tricks.com/using-css-without-html/

The example doesn't work for me on Chrome stable, Win7. So looks like we need some markup.

Works for me on Firefox 15 (linux)

And apparently, "This Site Totally Doesn't Work Without JavaScript."

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