Custom Freehand Cut Silhouettes

By definition a silhouette is a portrait depicted in an outline that has been filled in.  Though the silhouette’s greatest popularity was between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, it is an ancient art form.   Examples can be found in Paleolithic cave paintings!  The Greeks made silhouettes by tracing shadows cast by the sun.  The Chinese were creating cut-paper designs very like silhouettes as far back as the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 AD).

Their name comes from a Frenchman, Etienne de Silhouette (1709 – 1767) who reputedly cut silhouettes as a hobby.  He was also comptroller-general of France, and infamous for his tight finances.  Perhaps his name became synonymous with the art form because they represented (and still do) the least expensive means of portraiture.

Another Frenchman, August Edouart (1756 – 1821) was much more famous as a silhouettist.  Many of his wonderfully intricate silhouettes have survived, as he always cut a copy for himself and kept his work in albums.  Edouart portrayed most of the famous people of his era, both in Europe, where he did cuttings of kings, queens and nobility, and in America.  Here he did silhouettes of statesmen, athletes, writers, American Indians, aristocrats, and sometimes ordinary folk.

In England, where the cuttings were usually called “shadow portraits”, Sir Arthur Rackham, the famed illustrator, published two books of witty silhouettes illustrating Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

Today silhouette artists are few and hard to find.  My work is in part an effort to keep such an esteemed art form alive and available.  To me, there is great charm in the simplicity of the traditional cut silhouette, capturing as it can the essence of a person with a minimum of detailing, and calling on the viewer to use his own imagination to fill in the rest.

I hope you will frame, display and treasure yours, and pass them on to the next generation.

— Ruth Monsell