The cinematograph

The last decade of the 19th century saw not only how the art of photography was perfected, but also the birth of the cinematograph, a technique for projecting moving images.

At the time, they were short films lasting just a few minutes, but these first recordings, such as the one you can see in this room, entitled “Workers Leaving the Factory”, brought a new social stratum into the spotlight: the working classes. The focus was now on those who had previously been missing in the prevailing discourse of artistic, economic and political representation.

Workers and cigarette girls, anonymous people leaving church after mass, or getting onto a train – they were all shown by the rudimentary cameras of the early pioneers of cinema, who portrayed the immediacy of real life in a way traditional art could never hope to.

The fidelity of the cinematographic camera necessarily led to a new artistic paradigm. Picasso, Braque and many others, were fascinated by this new art, and would go to watch films at the cinema.

Transferring visible reality onto a canvas, or depicting it in a sculpture, no longer had the same meaning as before. Added to this, a growing atmosphere of renewal and modernity was taking over fin-de-siècle Europe.

(c) (R) 2012, MUSMon com S.L.