idea Post #7: Silhouettes

Silhouettes

Etomology from Oxford English Dictionary:

Etymology: < the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709–67), a French author and politician.

According to the usual account, which is that given by Mercier Tableau de Paris 147, the name was intended to ridicule the petty economies introduced by Silhouette while holding the office of Controller-general in 1759, but Hatzfeld & Darmesteter take it to refer to his brief tenure of that office. Littré, however, also quotes a statement that Silhouette himself made outline portraits with which he decorated the walls of his château at Bry-sur-Marne.

Silhouettes were originally a cheap way of creating a likeness of someone.

"The silhouette lends itself to avoidance of the subject. Of not being able to look at it directly, yet there it is, all the time, staring you in the face."

"I couldn’t really name these characters or caricatures in the way that the wall texts at the museum ... I think these figures are phantom-like. They’re fantasies. They don’t represent anything real. It’s just the end result of so many fabrications of a fabricated identity."

-Kara Walker

"Art21 . Kara Walker . Interview & Videos | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/walker/clip2.html.

this Interview is about how Kara Walker uses silhouettes and her adaptation of Gone With The Wind. Kara Walker is a contemporary artist today that uses silhouettes in her art work. She talks about race and slavery and the history of African Americans. Her silhouettes are placed directly on the wall and in some works she projects color lights on the the wall as well. This way as viewers are looking at the characters they are also creating their own silhouettes on to them. Walker looks to historical paintings as a hidden inspiration. She didn't realize how much she related to them until she started making work with silhouettes. She understands the idea of creating history through a painting is like setting a stage with the important people of the time. Walker in her own way is telling a different version of history with her characters, set out on a wall that acts as a stage. This creating of characters is quite interesting to me. I do not wish to rewrite a history as grand as America's but just telling my own story with characters I create. I believe I've been doing that all along with the cutouts I've made. Now using the silhouette is creating a whole different cast of characters among the ones I've already created. The history of the characters is growing and changing.

Second edition, 1989; online version March 2011. ; accessed 31 March 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1910.