Dictionary:

silhouette

  (sĭl'ū-ĕt')

1. A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.
2. An outline that appears dark against a light background. See synonyms at outline.

To cause to be seen as a silhouette; outline: Figures were silhouetted against the setting sun.

[French, after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767), French finance minister.]

noun

A line marking and shaping the outer form of an object: contour, delineation, outline, profile. See edge/center, surface/depth.

Definition: outline
Antonyms: body

(click to enlarge)
Silhouette portrait by Charles Willson Peale; in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Outline image or design in a single solid, flat colour, giving the appearance of a shadow cast by a solid figure. The term is usually applied to profile portraits in black against white (or vice versa), either painted or cut from paper, especially popular c. 1750 – 1850 as the least expensive method of portraiture. The name derives from Étienne de Silhouette, Louis XV's finance minister, notorious for his frugality and his hobby of making cut-paper shadow portraits. In 17th-century Europe, shadow portraits and scenes were produced by drawing the outline cast by candlelight or lamplight; when paper became widely available, they were often cut out freehand directly from life. Photography rendered silhouettes nearly obsolete, and they became a type of folk art practiced by itinerant artists and caricaturists.

For more information on silhouette, visit Britannica.com.

Silhouette, blacked-in profile portrait, named after Étienne de Silhouette (1709-67), Finance Minister under Louis XV, who enjoyed paper cutting as a hobby. As a popular art form the silhouette became widespread in the late 18th century, thanks partly to the Romantic cult of friendship and the physiognomical theories of J. K. Lavater. Although a variety of techniques and materials were used, paper cutting was the method of choice for the most famous silhouette artists, the Englishman John Miers and August Édouart, a Frenchman working in the USA who led a revival of interest in the early 19th century, before photography became the preferred form of affordable portraiture. Silhouette himself had been notorious for his penny-pinching financial policies, and the term was widely used to denote something cheap and common.

In photography, figures or objects can be silhouetted against a bright sky or background by exposing for the latter.

— Molly Rogers

Bibliography

• Jackson, E. R., The History of Silhouettes (1911)

Silhouettes—black profile portraits cut out of paper or painted on cards—were used as wall decorations during the first half-century of the republic. Well-known silhouettists included William M. S. Doyle and Henry Williams, both of whom worked in Boston, and William Bache, who was an itinerant. Another itinerant was the boy silhouettist Master Hubard, who cut profiles in 20 seconds. Auguste Edouart, a French visitor to America, cut full-length silhouettes. William Henry Brown, who was born in Charleston, South Carolina, likewise cut full-length silhouettes, and he published a Portrait Gallery of Distinguished American Citizens in 1855.

Bibliography

Carrick, Alice Van Leer. Shades of Our Ancestors. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1928.

Verplanck, Anne Ayer. "Facing Philadelphia: The Social Functions of Silhouettes, Miniatures, and Daguerrotypes." Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1996

Outline of a figure. The sharpness of the silhouette is a function of the shape, size and density of the object. This is most marked in radiography.

• basketball-shaped s. — the enlarged cardiac outline seen in the dorsal–ventral view of the thorax in a dog with chronic pericardial effusion.
• s. sign — produced when two fluid densities are contiguous and the individual outline of each is lost. Commonly used in the evaluation of chest problems.

A silhouette of a girl

A surfer and the California coast, seen in silhouette

A silhouette is a view of some object or scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior. The word is an eponym named after Etienne de Silhouette, a finance minister of Louis XV who in 1759 imposed such harsh economic demands upon the French people that his name became synonymous with anything done or made cheaply.

In art

A silhouette is a form of artwork. It is most commonly a human portrait in profile, in black. They do not show any facial expression. Silhouettes are most often made by a skilled silhouette artist by looking at a subject's profile, whether in person or from a photograph, and simply cutting out their likeness freehand.^{[citation needed]}

Two hundred years ago, long before the camera was invented, someone wishing to have an inexpensive portrait created of their loved ones would have visited a silhouette artist. Within minutes and using only a pair of scissors and a skillful eye, he would have produced a little image with a remarkable resemblance to his subject.^{[citation needed]}

A silhouetted skyline of some trees

Steve Abbott's sketch of Fingask Castle

In America, Silhouettes were highly popular from about 1790 to 1840. The invention of the camera signaled the end of the Silhouette as a widespread form of portraiture. However, their popularity is being reborn in a new generation of people who appreciate the Silhouette as a nostalgic and unique way of capturing a loved one's image.

A example of a color silhouette with a small depth of field

Silhouetted soldiers against a sunset sky

In popular culture

Silhouettes have been used in many of the opening credit sequences of the James Bond films, where girls dancing in silhouette appear to be naked.

Silhouettes have also been used by recording artists in music videos. One example is the group The Pussycat Dolls - in one of their videos, "Buttons", Nicole Scherzinger is seen showing her body as a silhouette.

Early iPod commercials portrayed silhouetted dancers wearing an iPod and earbuds.

The very popular TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 used the main characters in silhouette when they were shown watching the movie in the "movie theater".

Military usage

Silhouettes of ships, planes, tanks, and other vehicles used by the military are used by soldiers and sailors for recognition purposes. See Jane's Fighting Ships, aircraft recognition.

In graphic design

To silhouette is to separate (mask) a portion of an image so that it does not show. For instance, a background.

In journalism

For interviews, some individuals choose to be videotaped in silhouette to mask their facial features and protect their anonymity. This is done when the individual may be endangered if it is known they were interviewed.

Voice scrambling may also be employed for further protection.

See also

• Contre-jour
• Mudflap girl

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Silhouettes

• Silhouette Artists List of silhouette artists, both living and historical.
• GAP Guild of American Papercutters
• Costume Silhouettes Fashion silhouettes from the 1920s and 1930s.
• Silhouette Gallery A collection of silhouette style photographs.
• Silhouettes. Paintings & Drawings. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
• "Silhouette," poem by Jared Carter.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - silhouet, skyggerids
v. tr. - tegne sig i silhouet

idioms:

• in silhouette    i silhouet

Nederlands (Dutch)
silhouet, schaduwbeeld, aftekenen

Français (French)
n. - silhouette, ombre, contour
v. tr. - se détacher

idioms:

• in silhouette    en silhouette

Deutsch (German)
n. - Silhouette, Schattenriß
v. - die Konturen zeichnen

idioms:

• in silhouette    als Silhouette

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - περίγραμμα, σιλουέτα
v. - σκιαγραφώ

idioms:

• in silhouette    σαν σιλουέτα

Italiano (Italian)
profilare, sagoma, profilo

idioms:

• in silhouette    di profilo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - silhueta (f)
v. - silhuetar

idioms:

• in silhouette    em silhueta

Русский (Russian)
силуэт, очертания, изображать в виде силуэта, вырисовываться

idioms:

• in silhouette    в силуэтном изображении

Español (Spanish)
n. - silueta, perfil
v. tr. - trazar el contorno de, perfilar

idioms:

• in silhouette    de perfil o de contorno

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - silhuett, skuggprofil, skuggbild
v. - avbilda i silhuett

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
黑色轮廓像, 剪影, 侧面影像, 轮廓, 描绘成侧面影, 仅仅显出轮廓, 照出影子来

idioms:

• in silhouette    成剪影, 呈现轮廓

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 黑色輪廓像, 剪影, 側面影像, 輪廓
v. tr. - 描繪成側面影, 僅僅顯出輪廓, 照出影子來

idioms:

• in silhouette    成剪影, 呈現輪廓

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 실루엣, 그림자 , 전체의 모양
v. tr. - 실루엣으로 그리다, ~을 배경으로 나타내다, ~의 윤곽만을 보이다

idioms:

• in silhouette    실루엣으로 , 윤곽만으로

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - シルエット, 影絵, 影, 輪郭, 影法師
v. - シルエットで描く

idioms:

• in silhouette    シルエットで

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ألمظلله, صورة ظليه (فعل) يرسم صورة ظليه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮צללית, סילואט, מראה, עיצוב‬
v. tr. - ‮הראה בצללית‬

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