Ricciotto Canudo: the theorist who defined cinema as the seventh art

Ricciotto Canudo (1877–1923) was an Italian poet, writer, and art critic who first theorized cinema as a distinct art form, coining the term 'seventh art.' Born in Gioia del Colle, he moved to Paris in 1902, where he became editor-in-chief of L'Europe artiste. A versatile intellectual, he published works on music, Dante, and avant-garde art, and was the first to write about Marc Chagall in 1911. His film theory, posthumously collected in L'usine aux images (1927), argued that cinema synthesizes the six previous arts: music, architecture, poetry, dance, painting, and sculpture. Canudo also founded the magazine Montjoe (1913–14) and published the Manifeste de l'art cérébriste in Le Figaro in 1914. He died in Paris five months after marrying his collaborator Jeanne Janin.