Ricciotto Canudo

Ricciotto Canudo, ca.1912
Montjoie, Ricciotto Canudo, André Salmon, sculpture by Joseph Csaky, 3rd issue, 18 March 1914[1]

Ricciotto Canudo (2 January 1877 – 1923) was an early Italian film theoretician who lived primarily in France. He saw cinema as "plastic art in motion". He gave cinema the label "the Seventh Art", which is still current in French and Spanish, among others.

In his manifesto The Birth of the Sixth Art, published in 1911, he argued that cinema was a new art, "a superb conciliation of the Rhythms of Space (the Plastic Arts) and the Rhythms of Time (Music and Poetry)", a synthesis of the five ancient arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry (cf. Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics).

He also provided a platform for Cubism and Orphism, in his publications entitled Montjoie. The first issue was published on 10 February 1913. According to Canudo this was the only avant-garde magazine. Participating artists included Guillaume Apollinaire, Maurice Raynal, Albert Gleizes and Joseph Csaky. The magazine paid special attention to poetry, prose, articles on art, literature, music and history. The staff included André Salmon, Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, Fernand Léger, Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Raoul Dufy, Stefan Zweig, Robert Delaunay, Max Jacob, and Emile Verhaeren.[2][3]

The third issue of the second volume of Montjolie, published March 18, 1914, was devoted entirely to the 30th Salon des Indépendants. The article written by André Salmon included photographs of works by Joseph Csaky, Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall, Alice Bailly, Jacques Villon, Sonia Delaunay, André Lhote, Roger de La Fresnaye, Moise Kisling, Ossip Zadkine, Lucien Laforge and Valentine de Saint-Point.[3]

Publication of the magazine stopped on the eve of the First World War.

Canudo later added dance as a sixth precursor, a third rhythmic art with music and poetry, making cinema the seventh art.[4] In Paris, he established an avant-garde magazine Le Gazette de sept arts in 1920, and a film club, CASA (Club des amis du septième art), in 1921.[5] His best-known essay Reflections on the Seventh Art was published in 1923 after a number of earlier drafts, all published in Italy or France.


Other Writings

References

  1. ↑ Montjoie, 18 March 1913
  2. ↑ Montjolie, Gallica
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Montjolie, kubisme
  4. ↑ Bordwell, David (1997). On the History of Film Style. Harvard University Press. p. 29. ISBN 0-674-63429-2.
  5. ↑ Aitken, Ian (2001). European film theory and cinema: a critical introduction. Edinburgh University Press. p. 75. ISBN 0-7486-1168-1.

External links