Dictionary

seventh art en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˌsɛvənθ ˈɑɹt/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌsɛvnθ ˈɑːt/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Calque of Italian settima arte, which was coined by the Italian film theoretician Ricciotto Canudo (1877–1923) in 1921, considering filmmaking to be a new art combining the six previous arts of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, and poetry. Canudo had previously used the term sesta arte (literally “sixth art”) to describe filmmaking around 1911 when he did not include dance in the set of preceding arts.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:chiefly preceded by the definite article) The art of making motion pictures; filmmaking; cinema.
   • With some 40,000 professionals in attendance, Cannes is the world's largest annual convention, and a yearly thermometer for the temperature of the seventh art. 2008 May 14, Richard_Corliss, Mary Corliss, “Can Cannes still Do It?”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Warner Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 May 2008:
   • Georges Charensol's Panorama du cinema, originally published in 1927, […] was the bible of devotees of the seventh art. 1948, Jacques Queval, “Three French Histories of Film [book reviews]”, in Hollywood Quarterly, volume 3, number 4, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 454, column 2:
   • Because of the inherent interdisciplinarity of studying film—once called, appositely, the "seventh art"—film studies was among the first disciplines to embrace such theories and methodologies as feminism, semiotics, and structuralism. 2004 spring, Barry Keith Grant, “Diversity or Dilution? Thoughts on Film Studies and the SCMS [Society for Cinema and Media Studies]”, in Jon Lewis, editor, Cinema Journal: The Journal of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, volume 43, number 3, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 90:

Forms

Relateds

seven arts

Translations (5)

pl filmoznawstwo (art of making motion pictures — see also filmmaking) · fi seitsemäs taiteenlaji (art of making motion pictures — see also filmmaking) · fi seitsemäs taide (art of making motion pictures — see also filmmaking) · it settima arte (art of making motion pictures — see also filmmaking) · fr septième art (art of making motion pictures — see also filmmaking)

wikipedia: Jean Epstein · wikipedia: Ricciotto Canudo · wikipedia: Cinémathèque Française · wikipedia: Federico Fellini · wikipedia: Il bidone