Outline image or design in a single solid, flat colour, giving the appearance of a shadow cast by a solid figure.

The term is usually applied to profile portrai ts in black against white (or vice versa), either painted or cut from paper, esp ecially popular c. 1750 1850 as the least expensive method of portraiture. The n ame derives from tienne de Silhouette, Louis XV's finance minister, notorious for his frugality and his hobby of making cut-paper shadow portraits. In 17th-centu ry Europe, shadow portraits and scenes were produced by drawing the outline cast by candlelight or lamplight; when paper became widely available, they were ofte n cut out freehand directly from life. Photography rendered silhouettes nearly o bsolete, and they became a type of folk art practiced by itinerant artists and c aricaturists. Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/silhouette#ixzz1QmpIu7os

silhouette, an image or design in a single hue and tone, most usually the popula r 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. Th e word was satirically derived from the name of the parsimonious mid-18th-centur y French finance minister tienne de Silhouette, whose hobby was the cutting of pa per shadow portraits (the phrase la Silhouette grew to mean on the cheap ). The collecting of silhouettes became widespread, especially among world celebrit ies, the collection of Goethe being an example. Leading silhouette artists of th e second half of the 18th century and the early 19th century, the golden age of the art, included Francis Torond, A. Charles, John Miers, C. Rosenburg, Mrs. Bro wn, Auguste Edouart, T. Hamlet, and Mrs. Beetham (ne Isabella Robinson). The development of silhouettes is linked to that of outline drawing and shadow p ainting. Possibly originating in the cave murals of Stone Age peoples, especiall y those in France and Spain, realistic representation appears to have been first achieved by tracing the outline of an object s shadow, which was generally filled in with a flat colour. Representation by profile drawing continued in the more developed images of the tomb paintings, relief sculpture, and pottery decoration of the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Minoans, Greeks, and Etruscans. Ancien t Greek and Roman painters devised methods of drawing the outline of a person s sh adow cast by sunlight, as well as by candlelight or lamplight. The last two tech niques became widespread in 17th-century Europe. These shadow portraits were pai nted on diverse materials (plaster, wax, vellum, and paper) and were frequently elaborately mounted and framed. Beginning in the Renaissance period, various mechanical devices, such as the phy sionotrace, were invented and used to facilitate correct outline drawing. When p aper became generally available, shadow portraits and scenes were often cut out, frequently freehand, directly from life. The painted shade and the paper-cut silh ouette were very fashionable in 18th-century Europe and America as personal meme ntos. After the mid-19th-century development of the daguerreotype and photograph y, shadow pictures and silhouettes became a type of folk art, largely executed b y itinerant artists on street corners, in cafs, and at fairs. Occasionally, profe ssional caricaturists, such as the Englishman Phil May, continued to use the pai nted-shadow style; but the underlying principles of silhouette art were mainly t o persist in the 20th-century animated cartoons of Walt Disney and Lotte Reinige r and<script src="http://adserver.adtechus.com/addyn/3.0/5308.1/1371256/0/170/AD TECH;target=_blank;grp=78;key=true;kvqsegs=D;kvsource=other;kvtopicid=544147;kvc hannel=ARTS;misc=1309459632821"></script> in poster art. At the turn of the 21st century, the American artist Kara Walker revived the silhouette to powerful eff ect in her work on race and gender relations.