In the manifesto, Canudo defends cinema not as a mere commercial product or scientific curiosity, but as a "Total Art".
He first published "La Naissance d'un sixième art" (The Birth of a Sixth Art), arguing that cinema was a synthesis of the five traditional arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. Manifesto Das Sete Artes Ricciotto Canudo.pdf
Canudo believed film was a "divine impulse" that married the precision of science (the camera/projector) with the ideals of art. In the manifesto, Canudo defends cinema not as
