Chromatic Objects. Colour Advertising and French Avant-garde Films of the 1920s

This article aims to illustrate the possible connections between the emerging science of advertising and a selection of French avant-garde films made during the 1920s. The connections between advertising and avant-garde films provides an opportunity to reflect on the function of colour and black and white in the visual culture of the 1920s. Indeed, advertising reinforces a subjective and non-indexical understanding of colour, establishing an alternative spectatorship model to the realistic ideology that emerged during the same period. The article attempts to demonstrate that avant-garde films follow the same model of spectatorship, despite making only an occasional use of colour.