A SILHOUETTE is a portrait in pure outline, a profile cut from black paper and mounted against a white background. No colour, no shading, no extra detail beyond the shape itself. Yet somehow a well-cut silhouette captures likeness more immediately and more memorably than almost any other art form. People who see one of themselves for the first time are often startled by how recognisable it is.
Silhouette cutting is the art of creating those portraits by hand, freehand, with scissors. It’s considerably harder than a skilled artist makes it look.
A Brief History
Silhouette portraits were the selfies of their day. Long before cameras existed, a skilled silhouettist could capture a likeness in minutes for a fraction of the cost of a painted portrait, thus making portraiture accessible to ordinary people for the first time. They were enormously popular throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, collected in albums, exchanged as keepsakes, and treasured as records of faces that would otherwise be lost to time.
The art form takes its name (somewhat unkindly) from Étienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister whose association with miserliness gave his name to this most economical of art forms. At its peak, hundreds of silhouettists were working at royal courts, in fashionable studios, and at travelling fairs across Europe and America.
Photography largely displaced the silhouette in the mid-nineteenth century, and the art came close to dying out entirely. Today, only a handful of people in the world still practice it at a professional level.
How it Works
A silhouette portrait is usually cut freehand from a single sheet of black paper. The artist observes the subject’s profile and cuts directly, without drawing or tracing. The skill of the artist lies in translating what they see into tiny scissor movements in real time. A skilled silhouettist should be able to complete a portrait in well under two minutes.
The resulting shadow portrait is then mounted onto a white or cream backing card, often in a presentation wallet. What looks effortless in the hands of an experienced artist represents years of practice. The challenge is not just to create an accurate likeness, but to capture an individual’s character and expression through their outline alone.
What makes a good silhouette?
A technically accurate silhouette and a “good” silhouette are not always the same thing. The profile has to be correct, of course, but beyond accuracy a great silhouette captures something of the person: the way they hold their head, a characteristic posture, the particular set of a chin or brow that makes them instantly recognisable to the people who know them.
A good way to test a silhouette is to look inside the outline. You may think it’s just solid black, but look more closely. Your mind’s eye you should quickly begin to fill in the unseen details: the position of the ear, the curve of hair around the face, maybe even the expression of the eyes. This illusion of a silhouette beginning to come to life means you can be sure you’re looking at a good silhouette. The ability to create such a lifelike portrait is what separates a skilled silhouettist from someone simply cutting around a shadow.
It is also, incidentally, what makes silhouettes such enduring keepsakes. Unlike a photograph, which captures a moment, a silhouette distils the actual person and reduces them to their essential outline. In doing so, they can often be far more revealing more than a more detailed portrait. In her book on silhouettes, Anna Corsep
Experience it for yourself
Until recently, having your silhouette cut meant finding an artist working at an event or in a studio. The Online Portrait Studio changes that. Using Zoom, Charles Burns (one of the very few practitioners of this art working at a serious level today) cuts your portrait live, while you watch, from wherever you are in the world. The finished silhouette is mounted, signed, and delivered to your door.
It is, by some distance, the most unusual portrait sitting you will ever have.