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Why do we call cinema The Seventh Art? Why not sixth or fifth?

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  • As a kid in the 1960's in Cuba .I remember a TV show call El Septimo Arte.it was all about movies . The 7th Art term is used thru out Latin America and Europe. No one seems to even heard of the term in The USA. – user107413 Jan 25 '15 at 18:34
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Hegel first classified five arts in Lectures on Aesthetics:

  1. Architecture
  2. Sculpture
  3. Painting
  4. Music
  5. Poetry

In 1911, Ricciotto Canudo wrote The Birth of the Sixth Art arguing that Cinema was #6; later he redefined dance as #6, making cinema the seventh art.

The term is much more common in French than in English today.

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