From synaesthesia to suggestion: : Charles Blanc-Gatti’s advertising achievements in the 1930s

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Moving to Paris in 1924, the Swiss artist Charles Blanc-Gatti found in the advertising world the resources that would allow him to explore the artistic applications of synesthesia and of synchronized sound and light projections. His return to his native country marked his interest in cinema, and in 1938 he became the director of the new Montreux Colorfilm studio, which he often promoted through speeches tinged with nationalism. Fascinated by the power of suggestion that advertisement exercised over the mass public, Blanc-Gatti sought to enter the world of the newly emerging advertising film market. However, he did not want to create advertisement art, but rather to give precedence to the aesthetic dimension over the product. The study of the artist’s advertising creations and texts, which draw upon arguments from scientific aesthetics and psychophysiology, illustrates the porosity between art and industry and sheds light on the complex economic and political issues of the interwar period.