Storytelling was clearly of major importance in the development of cinema and television, as well as new forms of printed and graphic media, during the early twentieth century. But even if these media were new (or, more accurately, new inf lections of existing screen and print forms), storytelling is as old and universal as any sense of consciousness, according to the neuroscientist, Antonio Da…
n 1920 the prestigious French Légion d’honneur was awarded to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, whose clever business tactics had launched the careers of the impressionists a few decades earlier. The reason for this official mark of honour was not so much Durand-Ruel’s role in the flowering of French art as such, as it was his contribution to foreign trade.1 This mot…