What are Victorian silhouettes?

During the Victorian era, silhouettes were an affordable way for people to have portraits made. As photography was not as easy, accessible or as inexpensive as it is today, silhouette portraits were a way to remember loved ones too. A silhouette is made by using a light source to cast a shadow.

How are silhouettes made?

Silhouette images may be created in any visual artistic media, but were first used to describe pieces of cut paper, which were then stuck to a backing in a contrasting colour, and often framed.

When did silhouette art start?

18th century
The name Silhouette traces back to the mid-18th century French finance minister, Etienne de Silhouette. Because his name was synonymous with doing things cheaply and because he was fond of making these images himself, this artform was named after him. In America, Silhouettes were highly popular from about 1790 to 1840.

How did Victorians make silhouettes?

While traditional Victorian-era silhouettes were often made from intricately cut sheets of thin cardboard, many silhouettes were also painted or drawn. I recall as a child, in fact, using projected light to trace my schoolmates shadows on construction paper, then cutting them out to make our own handmade works of art.

What does a silhouette symbolize?

A silhouette shows the shape of the subject without any detail. For this reason, silhouettes are particularly useful and work well as symbols in logo design. A style can define the visual and emotional mood of an organization and it is achieved through the use of images, typeface and color.

What is a silhouette in art?

silhouette, an image or design in a single hue and tone, most usually the popular 18th- and 19th-century cut or painted profile portraits done in black on white or the reverse. Silhouette also is any outline or sharp shadow of an object.

How do you make a silhouette cutout?

Remove your enlarged tracing from the wall and place it flat on your work surface. Cut your silhouette out using either scissors or x-acto knife – scissors work fine for minimal detail, but an x-acto knife is indispensable for fine details. Place your cut out silhouette on a contrasting background… and presto!

How were antique silhouettes made?

In America, silhouettes were highly popular in the first half of the 1800s. The most common type was hollow-cut, leaving the white paper frame silhouetting a hole. This was then mounted against a black or dark background of paper, cloth or painted glass.

How do you describe a silhouette?

a two-dimensional representation of the outline of an object, as a cutout or configurational drawing, uniformly filled in with black, especially a black-paper, miniature cutout of the outlines of a person’s face in profile. the outline or general shape of something: the slim silhouette of a skyscraper.