The practice of making a dark shape is named after one of Louis XV’s ministers. Its history embraces cartoons,racial stereotypes, cubism and Elvis Presley postersWhen waiting for a friend in a busy public place, or we spot them by their outline long before their features approach into focus. It’s this border between flesh and the world that is the starting point and organising principle of Georges Vigarello’s inventive book on the body in history.
The word “silhouette” turns out to derive from a finance minister at the court of Louis XV,who managed to final only eight months in office: one theory is that it was Étienne de Silhouette’s flickering impact on public life that gave rise to the opinion he was a kind of human shadow. Another is that the former minister liked pushing his friends up against the walls of his chateau and drawing around their edges. Either way, it was only in the middle of the 18th century that the pursuit of representing people in profile made much sense at all. Thanks to the Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual rather than collective identity, and people were now able to imagine themselves as unique beings rather than anonymous functionaries of the cosmos. Related: Guess the film silhouette - in pictures Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com