The Silhouette: From the 18th Century to the Present Day 9781474269698, 9781474244657

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To my daughter, Claire

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INTRODUCTION

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OS Silhouette: such is the urgent announcement forming the title of a recently published book.1 The silhouette and its instantly visible contours have become indicators of well-being, or even conformity; they may equally be seen as warning signs heralding potential trouble or even danger. Both must be closely monitored. Nowadays, the state of one’s silhouette is virtually a quantifiable “asset,” and is the subject of increasingly specialized attention and care, from diets to exercise, and from liposuction to thalassotherapy. Associated with the theme of body size, the outlines of the silhouette form an immediately visible sign profoundly linked to our identity; this presents an increasing challenge to our daily practices. Nowhere have these demands been more clearly expressed than in the diary of Bridget Jones, a familiar character type from our contemporary world, as she translates her fluctuating weight patterns into a literary commentary: “Tuesday 3 January, 9st 4 (terrifying slide into obesity – why? Why?). […] Wednesday 4 January, 9st 5 (state of emergency now as if fat has been stored in capsule form over Christmas and is being slowly released under skin). […] Sunday 8 January, 9st 2 (v. bloody g. but what is point?). […] Monday 6 February, 8st 12 (heavy internal weight completely vanished – mystery). […] Monday 4 December, 9st 2 (hmm, must get weight off before Christmas gorging) […]”2 The huge importance invested in the idea of keeping one’s figure, involving patient, constant improvement, has presented us with a never-ending challenge: any signs of possible dysfunction or of insidious collapse trigger reactions of alarm. The word “silhouette,” however, was not always imbued with the same connotations as it is today. It first emerged in the 1760s, and for a long period it was associated solely with the domain of drawing. It was initially the surname of one of Louis XV’s ministers. As a result of Monsieur de Silhouette’s “exceedingly brief” tenure as Minister of Finance in 1759, his name was transformed into a common noun—“a silhouette.” The neologism was first used to describe “inferior” drawings, shaded outlines suggesting the most cursory and hastily executed of profiles. These works also represented

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Charles Motte, Eh bonjour – donc, (Well, hello then…) 1821. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early 19th-century prints provide us with a series of images of social life linked to dramatic changes in society itself. In this context, the exploration of the many and varied physical appearances to be found in society contributed to a more detailed investigation of physical characteristics themselves. This included presumed deformities in the structure of the body.

a “challenge,” in the endeavor to achieve the most striking effect possible with the minimum number of lines. More shifts in meaning subsequently occurred, revealing the increasingly significant focus on appearance and body types and the aim to individualize and categorize them. The change from a long-standing general interest in drawing the body and its contours, to a much more meticulous preoccupation with personal profiles is a fundamental aspect of this process. Another essential factor is the change from a purely descriptive approach to a much more intimate focus on the subject, giving meaning to individual behavior and characteristics. These shifts in definition ultimately reveal the growing importance of practices intended to control one’s bodily contours or, indeed, to alter them. It must be said that there has been no work to date dealing with the history of this subject.3 The word “silhouette,” its “deviations,” the images it evokes and the practices related to it have not been analyzed, either in the context of their long iconographic or lexical course, or of their cultural journey. The specific nature of the term—the issues it involves and their effects on its current meaning—has been all but ignored. And yet there is a considerable distance separating its initial 18th-century meaning, limited to shadow drawings comprising black outlines set against a white background, from its current, 21st-century interpretation. Its associations with the art of drawing have now diminished, leaving its primary focus on the contours of the body alone. This move from the art of drawing to the art of appearance, and from the gesture of the artist to that of the social observer, represents a huge journey. The same sense of challenge presented by shape and form still remains, however. This is a rich history. It has a sense, a “logic,” which has led to the unprecedented significance attached to the word “silhouette” today. It is also “multi-faceted.” It demonstrates an increased focus on the social context, and the aim of placing diverse body types into social groups; it is also associated with academic preoccupations, and the aim of presenting and categorizing the various morphological types. Lastly, it relates to individual preoccupations, and the personal aim of attaining one’s ideal body profile. The first specifically “shadow” portraits executed in the 1760s were already original in their own way. They established a form of observation. They demonstrated the interest aroused by morphology, different appearances and bodily contours in the Age of Enlightenment. Their perspective may well be likened to that of the first naturalists, with their distinctive and precise analyses of animal anatomy, their rigorous explorations of form, and their attempts at categorization. They introduced a different focus. These shadow drawings were also associated with a new attention accorded to personalized features, to individual characteristics of appearance and deportment: the black line concentrated attention on the profile to a previously unprecedented degree.

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An additional characteristic of this history is the fact that the word “silhouette” itself expanded in meaning, which increased its spheres of application. The world of illustration played a crucial role in this respect. For instance, the early 19th century witnessed a new approach to graphic art entailing greater sharpness of line. Changes also occurred with caricature, which became progressively freer in its characterization, and with the daily press, which featured increasingly cursory illustrations of figures. Each, in its own way, enriched the culture of observation during the 19th century. They intensified the focus on the body. They overturned the principles of drawing, establishing “silhouette” as a term extending far beyond a shaded image. Illustrations of figures, in particular, reflected a shift of emphasis as attention was drawn to diversity, rather than “nobility” of form, and to the increasingly distinctive portrayals of profiles rather than to their graceful quality. This gave rise to a very different approach to depictive representation from that of classicism, resulting in a determination to categorize every type of diversity. The grand academic drawing with its idealized figures was subverted as tradition was turned on its head, and the most “commonplace” bodily forms imposed their colorful presence. It became increasingly important to create figures with individualized and evermore distinctive contours. This approach was essential, as it helped to “highlight” physical appearance through the immediate impact of line. It redirected the gaze, so that the silhouette instantly caught the eye. A further transition occurred in the late 19th century. This involved the human form itself, which became more slender and supple. The appearance of both men and women altered as it adapted to contemporary society. It was realigned—modified for a world based on speed, mobility, and functionality. Bodies became lighter, slimmer, and more responsive. They were more emphatically defined by the notion of “figure” than ever before. A form of complete harmony between the body and its environment linked it more closely than ever to the concept of the silhouette. Figures have become tauter, narrower, their adaptability responding to the prevailing ideal of instant communication. This is a particularly imperative requirement as it indicates how individuals assert themselves through a display of “self-mastery.” The fulfillment of this obligation is crucial as it is now a sign of personal identity. The word “silhouette,” with its allusions to a pared-down profile, has therefore become the most appropriate term to express this new world of physicality. It is also the most suitable starting point for today’s endless, obligatory procedures aimed at improving one’s appearance: the quest for a perfect form of balance between image and identity. In this way, the concept has undergone a final transformation, and has even acquired an unprecedented “depth.” It no longer simply relates to the care of one’s figure in obedience to an imposed ideal, but also implies the patient task of mastering the inner self.

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INTRODUCTION

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1

A NEW WORD, A NEW LINE

THE INVENTION OF THE WORD “SILHOUET TE” (18th century)

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n order to gain a clearer understanding of its cultural horizons and of the unprecedented curiosities that it introduced, we need to return to the initial appearance of the word itself. “Silhouette” was originally the surname of a finance minister, Étienne de Silhouette. His term of office proved a failure and he only occupied the post from March to November 1759. His quest for obtaining new revenue through wealth tax brought about his downfall and gave rise to mockery and gibes, his name being synonymous with all things crude or even wretched. Louis-Sébastien Mercier commented on this with amusement at the end of the 18th century, playing on the theme of austerity and the suggestions of “poverty” created by the simple, abbreviated lines: “From then on, everything took on the ‘silhouette look’ and his name quickly became ridiculous. Fashions acquired an air of roughness and shoddiness that was quite intentional. Greatcoats had no pleats, breeches no pockets, snuffboxes were made of plain, untreated wood: portraits were drawn in profile on black paper, following the line of shadow cast by a candle on a sheet of white paper. In this way, the nation took its revenge.”4 The prevailing theme here was that of the hastily made drawing: the plain, often insignificant work, the simplified line resulting from lack of detail, the almost “mean,” unfinished impression. This pejorative reference had no lasting effects, however, either in practice or in implication. The presumed impact of Étienne de Silhouette’s extremely short tenure as finance minister and the furtive, fleeting quality of that entire episode, established another legend. It gave rise to various expressions: a brief passage might be described as “à la silhouette,” while “the silhouette line” was used to emphasize the notion of rapid sketches, rough outline drawings that were quickly executed and just as quickly erased. Whilst they certainly offered a general image, the effect was fleeting, akin to a momentary glimpse. The comments made by Louis-Sébastien Mercier are clarified by another legend, according to which Étienne de Silhouette created highly distinctive profile portraits by tracing the outline of a shadow. This is suggested by the Journal officiel of 29 August 1869, which recalls the highly unusual decorations in the rooms of his château:

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“One of this noble gentleman’s main pastimes consisted of tracing a line around the shadow of a face, in order to see its profile set against the wall: several rooms in his château had walls covered with drawings of this type, known as ‘silhouettes’ after their creator, a name which has endured.” The highly original concern here involves precision of line and the “faithful” depiction of reality. There are a few accounts of earlier practices that entailed cutting out portraits on paper, a variety of play with shadows, and black drawings on a white background. In England, a certain Mrs Pyburg cut out portraits of the monarchs William and Mary in about 1699, a posthumous likeness as the queen died in 1694, but a real creation nonetheless; it is mentioned in royal collections, although there is no indication of its whereabouts.5 A few “Versailles beauties” share the same fate; their portraits were also cut out in the 17th century and appear to have vanished without a trace. Swift, however, explicitly mentions drawings of this type in his Miscellanies of 1745, describing faces cut out of paper, where salient features stand out sharply: “Forehead, Nose, and Chin.”6 He likens the scissors cutting around the shapes to those of a tailor cutting out his pattern. He emphasizes the effect of the “line”: the brightness of the eyes is lost, but the likeness remains, now a “Force of Art.”7 At all events, whether the process constituted an amusement, a pastime, or a curiosity, it left barely a trace of its presence or any palpable evidence, not even a specific name. The art of creating cutouts or playing with the outline of a shadow certainly existed before the invention of Louis XV’s minister, but it was viewed much more as diversion and entertainment rather than a serious undertaking. Silhouettes themselves could still be viewed as a base form of art in the 1780s, objects of condescension and mockery, or even of disdain: “The silhouette’s indeed a wondrous thing, Lending to faces all the charms they lack How perfectly it fits that old saying – At night-time, everything is black!”8

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However, the second half of the 18th century saw the emergence of a more detailed, methodical approach to this type of drawing. The explicit aim was to create a profile as faithful as possible to the original, so that exact resemblance became an exclusive aspiration. Therein lay both the originality and the challenge of the art. This was a specific and significant approach, particularly as several English creations known as “shades” or “profiles” preceded works known as “silhouettes” in France by a few months. For a while, the English continued to use terms such as “black profile portraits”9 or

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Georg Melchior Kraus, Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1775, gazing at the silhouette of Charlotte von Stein, 1775. Weimar, Goethe-Nationalmuseum. Goethe’s pose here epitomizes astonishment. The black, cutout silhouette, its features intended to appear sharp and precise, is so lifelike as to astonish its beholder. The creation of silhouette art in the 18th century marked a triumph for the individualized image and the subject alike. opposite

Étienne de Silhouette, full-length silhouette portrait, 1750. This is one of the rare (not attributed) portraits outlined by Étienne de Silhouette. It is a “typical” work, where the artist’s skill lies in reproducing both facial features and bodily positions with equal accuracy. The emphasis on individualism was a characteristic aspect of the Age of Enlightenment.

T h e I n v ention of t h e W ord “ S i l h ouette ”

Lady Dorothy Bradshaigh, right: Miss Palmer, left: Roger Palmer, life-size heads, hollow-cut blue paper, h. 24.1 cm, 1758. Private Collection. In 1758, a few months before the invention attributed to Monsieur de Silhouette, Dorothy Bradshaigh was creating remarkably precise shaded portraits in blue set against a white background. This confirms the more or less simultaneous emergence of a fashionable art form in several European countries. The challenge involved reproducing the facial features with striking accuracy through a strictly linear process.

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even simply “shadow.” Highly accomplished works were already in existence before the innovation of the French finance minister. For example, in 1758, a few months before Monsieur de Silhouette took up his ministerial post, Dorothy Bradshaigh executed remarkably precise shadow portraits in blue on a white background: the roots of the hair, the line of the eyelashes, the corners of the lips and double chins are all reproduced to the most meticulous degree, with an abundance of detail. Portraits were valued, preserved and mounted.10 This confirms the decisive convergence of two geographically distinct locations and nationalities: a meeting point for several initiatives involving form, almost identical in precision and purpose, was established at the heart of European Enlightenment culture. One name alone, however, the “silhouette,” was internationally adopted after rapidly rising to prominence, confirming the collective nature of this artistic enterprise. A complete change occurred with these highly novel exercises involving sharply defined lines. There was now a clear objective: the line should present the closest possible imitation of the original, echoing reality.

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The effect was clearly reduced to the impact of the black shadow, as evoked in the earliest definitions: “Portraits executed in the so-called Silhouette style were images of profiles traced on black paper, following the line of a shadow cast by candlelight on a sheet of white paper.”11 This is confirmed by Rousseau in his Confessions when he describes the “silhouettestyle drawing,” which is sufficiently accurate to assist a sculptor in carving his statue: “Monsieur Laliaud of Nîmes wrote to me from Paris to beg me to send him the silhouette of my profile. He needed this for my marble bust, which he was having made by le Moine [Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne] to place in his library.”12 These drawings depicted the face alone, but their contours were refined, suggesting the “portrait reduced to its essential form.”13 In this way, “All our attention is concentrated on outline.”14 It might be the simplest of outlines, but it provided the most faithful likeness; an incisive sketch, it brought every element together in a single stroke. This constituted its distinctive, novel characteristic, as it mirrored the “exact” facial contour of each unique and individual subject. In this case, the silhouette represented the principles of identity and of difference. It emphasized the number of distinctive details in a face, as well as its possible “divergences” from others. It exhibited profiles in all their diversity, which it emphasized and defined. This all formed part of a new cultural attitude orientated towards individuals, with their unique expressions, traits, and distinctive characteristics. The individual lay at the heart of the enterprise. The process became so important during the 18th century that Johann Kaspar Lavater, the Swiss physiognomist whose aim was to carry out a detailed study of different expressions, invented a “machine” to improve the “silhouetting” of his subjects. This comprised a heavy wooden frame into which a vertical sheet of white paper could be inserted, reflecting the shadow of a face placed between the paper and a light source. The “seat (of the person to be drawn) is especially adapted and constructed in such a way that the head and body may be leant against it.”15 In this way, the subject would be “fixed” and lit by a “strong” light. There were numerous details regarding the device: “the light is reflected onto a polished pane of glass (on which the paper is placed) […]. As the lower section of the glass is thin, it must be edged with iron and should be raised in order to rest steadily on the model’s shoulder.” The shadow delineated the image. The line became clear, and the illustrator ran his “pencil” around the contours created in this manner. The word “silhouette” was adopted and gained in prestige; it was associated with implements as well as with effects. It is important to emphasize Lavater’s expectations as the clearest expression of the results he hoped to achieve. The physiognomist asserted that he would capture a “personality,” reproducing the “truest and most faithful image”16 that could be made of an individual, corresponding to the

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Jean Gaspard Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, destiné à faire connaître l’homme et à le faire aimer, The Hague, 1783–1806, v. II, p. 176–177. Lavater compared the silhouettes of different individuals. He sought out their unique features, curvatures, and “faculties.” For example, the “delicate outline of the forehead” seen on the individual at the top on the left, was a sign of “moderation in desires,” while the “short distance between the nose and the lip … the harmony of the whole” displayed by the character at bottom on the right, indicated a “judicious man, one among ten thousand.” The precision of the silhouetted features enabled the artist to create a collection of unique and accurate images.

T h e I n v ention of t h e W ord “ S i l h ouette ”

“The Silhouette artist,” anonymous copperplate engraving reproduced by Jean Gaspard Lavater in his work Physiognomy, 2nd volume, 11th fragment, Leipzig and Winterthur, 1775. Paris, Private Collection. The work of silhouette artists prompted the invention of a device intended to steady the sitters’ pose to improve the execution of the drawing. The photographer’s studio might well have been an extension of this principle, introducing a “technical” element to facilitate portrayal.

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“immediate imprint of Nature.”17 This type of image would intensify expressions to an “infinite” degree, displaying the distinctive features of the physiognomy alone, disassociated from any “extraneous” aspect, any allusion to the picturesque or incidental details regarding color or skin. The outline would present the most revealing, “pared-down” image of the profile. It was further asserted that “no art comes close to the truth of an accurate silhouette.”18 This affirmation, certainly ambitious, was also illusory, but its ultimate truth is hardly important here: the intention takes precedence over the result. The issue in this case is the desire to examine physiognomical characteristics as closely as possible and to reveal the line in its alleged original form. As the silhouette “cuts around” a subject’s physique, the focus is on a personalized analysis. This is confirmed by the comparison of “several

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silhouettes representing persons of contrasting characters:”19 their differences would be even more striking as the “slightest alteration in the line” would be sufficient to create a profound change in the “character” represented. For the first time, an undertaking of this nature had claims to scholarship: “The silhouette offers positive, incontrovertible proof of the science of physiognomy.”20 There was also an aspiration to sensitivity, as the image was intended to induce emotion through the sudden impact of a lifelike effect: “Your silhouette, so like! […] in such a costly, pretty and stylish setting,”21 declared Luise von Göchhausen in 1781 as she expressed her “delight” with the cutout face of her mother given as a present. The silhouette portrait of William Pitt, Prime Minister of England in 1783 at the age of twenty-four, accurately reproduced his “obstinate upper lip” and thus revealed his “very ego,”22 in the eyes of George III himself. Conversely, Goethe found his mother’s silhouette so “frightful”23 that he asked the Swiss physiognomist to remove it from his albums, although he found his father’s silhouette both charming and touching. The public was convinced, and a new art of portraiture was born. Lavater enjoyed huge success. His Physiognomie ran into several editions: at least 150 were published during the few decades following the first German edition of 1776–1778. The work also became known on the international scene and translations were published in Europe as well as in the United States. It had its imitators, with variations in genre, formats, and readership, from the Lavater des dames24 to the Petit Lavater français25 and the Lavater des tempéraments et des Constitutions.26 One vision prevailed: the physiognomist promised to “characterize most faces with an accuracy which will leave no further room for doubt as to the significance of silhouettes.”27 Those sitting for their silhouettes would also reveal their “hidden” personalities, their unnoticed yet determining characteristics. This was, of course, all based on belief, as well as grandiloquence, and undoubtedly illusion. However, the certainty of both revealing a personality through a portrait and of establishing a science was paramount here: a former “parlor game” had suddenly become a “means to a scientific end,”28 The assurance of an objective approach was confirmed, bringing inevitable consequences: “the demand for silhouettes rose sharply.”29 The appearance of collections reflected public conviction: for example, that of the Prince of Wales in 1799 was described by the Hampshire Telegraph as “a Lavaterian collection of his friends […] the largest collection ever seen.”30 This was borne out yet more emphatically by the Gentleman’s Magazine on the death of Lavater in 1801, recommending that every English home should contain a copy of his book, and claiming that its presence was as necessary as the Bible. The personalization of the profile assumed greater importance than ever, as an assertion of individuality. Not that the portrait was invented through

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Jean Gaspard Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, destiné à faire connaître l’homme et à le faire aimer, The Hague, 1783–1806, v. II. Lavater was interested in differences between bodily carriage and profiles. He sought out the most expressive physical contours, such as those reflecting age or infirmity, with the regularly repeated assurance that they enabled him to “deduce” behavioral traits. His prints, with their “semi- abbreviated” forms, bear a certain resemblance to the work of silhouette artists.

T h e I n v ention of t h e W ord “ S i l h ouette ”

Isaac Cruikshank, A Chapter of Noses, 1790, Paris, BnF. Besides its comic intention, this portrayal of a multitude of different noses reflects the aim to individualize physical appearance. This objective, clearly illustrated here, coincided with the appearance of silhouette art.

Lavater’s initiatives, of course, but the curiosity he aroused was further emphasized and above all culturally shared. A number of indications confirm this, for example the frequent appearance of personal portraits in inventories of the deceased; these increased from 18 percent in the 17th century to 28 percent in the 18th century, while there was a sharp decline in the presence of religious images.31 This was an example of “the conquest of the individual identity”32 as stated by Pierre Goubert and Daniel Roche, a concept favored by Enlightenment culture. Moreover, features were reproduced with extreme precision in the quest for a more lifelike effect, a fact regularly mentioned by a number of 18th-century portraitists or literary figures. In Burke’s words, for example: “a portrait is the ideal of an individual, not of men in general.”33 This is also reflected in the reaction shown by Saint-Preux to the portrait of Julie in La Nouvelle Héloïse. The picture is sent to him in order to help awaken his memories, evoking Julie’s presence through a faithful likeness—yet Saint-Preux is both enchanted and disappointed. He appreciates the effort made to restore her image, but regrets the academism of the work: the painter had embellished her features rather than respecting them through accurate depiction. He had “ornamented” more than he had “observed.” This was a grave error: all that mattered was the accurate reproduction of facial contours, however singular these might be, and a drawing should essentially reflect exactitude, even if it did not “conform.” Saint-Preux loved the “individuality” of Julie’s beauty, down to every last distinctive feature. He recalls it with sublime force: “It is not only the elements of your beauty that I love, but you as a whole, as you are.”34 This approach is demonstrated by the satirical drawing or caricature, an 18th-century innovation. These likewise focused on a subject’s most personal characteristics in an attempt to exaggerate an original feature to the point of ridicule. The aim was partly to achieve a grotesque effect, but above all, to create a more individualized appearance.35 This is the definition given by the Encyclopédie in the mid-18th century: “The art (of caricature) consists of distinguishing the real or alleged vice already present in some part. Then, using expression, it is brought to the point of exaggeration where it is still recognizable, but beyond

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which it would be recognizable no longer; the caricature has then attained its most powerful form.”36 English caricatures illustrating the entourage of George III in the 1790s provide a veritable gallery of physiognomical extremes, with faces displaying an abundance of deliberately depicted contrasts and deformities. These include the exaggeratedly jutting chin of the Duke of Grafton; the exaggeratedly receding chin of Lord Amherst; the excessively emaciated face of the Marquess of Rockingham or that of Lord North, exceedingly puffy; the expressionless smile of Lord Shelburne, and the calculated grin of Lord Sandwich.37 Personal details were illustrated and accentuated. A variety of alternating shapes and exaggerations accumulated, vying with each other, always with the aim of more effectively exposing idiosyncratic characters and quirks. In this way, the invention of the silhouette revealed a precise moment in western culture, when the highly individual nature of appearance was the subject of investigation, the body itself providing a focus for unprecedented study. Late 18th-century physiognomists from England, Germany, Switzerland, and France created multiple examples of these austere, contrasting profiles, which were presented as true-to-life portraits.

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Caricature of Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, a British politician depicted as the equivalent of Philippe “Égalité,” a revolutionary French politician, 1794. The invention of the caricature, the art of accentuating an individual’s distinctive characteristics to a ridiculous extent, coincided roughly with the emergence of the silhouette during the 18th century. The aim in both cases was to reproduce a clearly unique appearance.

T h e I n v ention of t h e W ord “ S i l h ouette ”

THE ART OF “SILHOUETTING”

T Physiognotrace portrait of Pierre or François Gonord. François Gonord was one of the most famous silhouette artists in late 18th-century France. He opened a shop under the arcades of the Palais-Royal in the 1780s. He was also one of the first practitioners to enhance his silhouettes with colors, which did not detract from the rigorous exactitude of his portraits.

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hese processes and their results are particularly significant as a genuine profession was establishing itself during the same period— that of “silhouetting.” This was chronicled by August von Kotzebue in his observations of Paris written at the dawn of the 19th century, where he described ballrooms, reception halls or simply cafés: “In one corner of the room there was a silhouette artist who had set up a table there and was creating silhouettes on the spot for quite a reasonable price.”38 The lawyer Barbier also mentions this during the same period, alluding to “cutters with scissors.”39 All the public ballrooms in Paris, from the Terpsichore to the Frascati, would have had their own “appointed silhouettist.”40 The process therefore had its own artists, its circulation, and its public. Moreover, silhouettists began setting up shops, confirming the practice as an official activity with its own establishments. In France, the most famous of these belonged to François Gonord during the 1780s and was located at arcade 167 in the Palais-Royal. It was indicated by “a special lantern decorated with silhouettes, which helped patrons find his studio in the dark.”41 The shop belonging to Francis Torond of London, which featured in the Daily Advertiser in 1776, was associated with an academy of drawing where the importance of silhouette art was established.42 Advertisements or signs added to the impact. All boasted of creating “perfect likenesses,”43 profiles as rapidly executed as they were accurate. All offered the assurance of avoiding “time, trouble, and expense,”44 such as Raphaelle Peale of London, who in 1799 promised: “will deliver likeness for a short time.”45 All insisted on the ease of the process, some going so far as to relieve fears by promising the “inoffensiveness” of its nature and confirming the absence of “any dark chamber.”46 The main emphasis was on speed and efficiency: the “client” could “acquire” his or her “face” in a short time. Eventually, new instruments were invented to reinforce the technique. For example, there were various stands and supports for the body, enabling the face to be held steady in order to achieve greater precision in the drawing; there were also mirrors accentuating the distribution of light to heighten the contrasting effect of the shadow. There was also the pantograph—this was a mechanism that helped the artist to create an identical, reduced version of the profile so that the image would be better positioned and more “workable;”47 there was even a device allowing two or three copies to be

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reproduced with the same movement, known as the polygraph.48 Various mechanisms intended to assist with the process of capturing or cutting out sitters’ features were extolled by late 18th-century professionals: there was the “Ediograph,” the “Prosopographus,” the “Physionotrace,” and the “Delineator.”49 These instruments may have left little concrete evidence, but they all reflected the aim of precision expressed by their creators. This drive for individualization centered on technique and exactitude, together with the equally novel notion that everything could be done by machines, as they were able to reproduce contours in a semi-mechanical manner. An example is the delineator: a rounded point was passed over the shadow by hand, as lightly as possible, while slender, rigid levers, equipped with a pencil, reproduced the line created in this manner on another sheet of paper.50 The machine would carry out the outline. All this sometimes caused silhouettists to play down their own talents in order to emphasize the impact of the mechanisms. For example Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, who produced over a thousand portraits, declared in a letter addressed to Sauvageot in the early 19th century: “For my ability in the drawing phase of art I make no claims.”51 The frames for the drawings also became standardized, facilitating their circulation. François Gonord offered “all-purpose frames,” colored and decorated, “into which the silhouette of the person cut out in this way is placed, while their name is written in ink or printed with the aid of movable letters on the plaque.”52 Personalized images became commonplace and were everywhere to be seen, displayed on desks or pedestal tables. As an ultimate innovation, some silhouette artists colored or even painted the shaded section, creating a nuanced effect and bringing the line to life. For instance, the profiles created by François Gonord resemble silhouettes, while their coloring evokes the most classic characteristics of portraiture. In this way, differences in prestige were established between the silhouettists themselves. The most remarkable example of officialized status remains that of Charles Rosenberg, who in the late 18th century was appointed “Profile-Painter to Their Majesties and Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of York.”53 Displaying a very subtle use of color, Rosenberg produced a number of painted silhouettes, embellishing the profiles of the royal family with controlled effects of light and luminance.

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The physiognotrace: “Mechanized” portrait art In 1784, Gilles-Louis Chrétien, a cellist in the royal orchestra, invented a “portrait machine” very similar in principle to Lavater’s chair (see p. 17) and his traced portraits. The procedure is interesting from a historical standpoint as it illustrates a number of cultural phenomena, the first being its “democratization” of the portrait. The artist’s shop, established near the Palais-Royal, was popular with the public. It also met an academic objective, as the Académie des sciences believed that Chrétien’s machine could “identify soldiers and drive out deserters.” Lastly, it was controversial in an artistic sense, with Academy-trained artists expressing contempt for the machine, known as “the monkey.” It remained a new mode of representation, democratizing the portrait while aspiring to “scholarly” precision. See Guillaume Mazeau, “La machine à tirer le portrait”, Corps et machines à l’âge industriel, Eds. Laurence Guignard, Pascal Raggi, Étienne Thévenin. Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011.

T h e A rt of “ S i l h ouettin g ”

The large number of works produced allowed demand to be met on a staggered basis and costs to be controlled. They confirm the existence of a widely shared taste and, above all, they give us greater insight into the presence of profile portraits in homes during the Age of Enlightenment. They are a tangible expression of a desire to personalize, its shift to the technical domain, and its translation into portraiture. And lastly, they prefigure the advent of photography a few decades later in a very specific manner. This certainly increases their interest from a historical viewpoint. With the emergence of silhouette artists, the fascination with one’s “own” image anticipated the allure of the photographer’s studio.54 The operation was completely innovative and original, even with regard to the way it was conducted: clients entered a shop, a professional created their portrait in the shortest time possible, the subjects received their “face” and left the shop, as with an ordinary purchase. Everything was completed within a few moments; the “industrial” machine seemed to have replaced the hand. The “portrait” was displayed, commented on, and admired. Being made of paper, these were fragile copies, however: their status as ephemeral objects has accentuated the extreme rarity of their presence in today’s collections and archives.

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F R O M S H A D E D FAC E S TO SHADED FIGURES

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t was nevertheless difficult for artists to limit themselves to faces alone. The originality of some silhouettists, and that of Lavater in particular, lay in their scrutiny of the whole shadow beyond the face and physiognomy. Several full-length figures, shaded in black against the paper, are analyzed by the Swiss physiognomist in his book. These include the tutor lecturing his pupil and the mother holding the bust of her child, full body silhouettes that were cut out and placed on a white background. The tutor leaning over his pupil suggests determination and “greatness,”55 while the mother with the child’s bust is said to personify “nobility” and “spirituality.” It must be said that these are poor interpretations, but they reveal a new aim: all the contours of clothing and of the body itself would now be cut out, as a series of boundaries, for closer examination. The outline of the body was copied, detailed, and chiseled to facilitate the recognition of expressions and personal features. This was unquestionably an entirely new preoccupation; it was echoed by Lavater in other profiles, although these were drawn rather than cut out of black paper. There were figures of military men or clergymen, for example, differentiated from one another simply by their “envelopes.” The enterprise centered on the diversity of their contours: differences in girth, head carriage, and the direction of their gaze were all translated into the mute lines of a traced profile. The contrasting forms of a general, an officer or an insignificant soldier, a cardinal, a bishop or a humble vicar were all displayed in this manner. These interpretations were all wordlessly achieved by giving the general and the cardinal a bigger paunch or heftier figure than the lowly soldier or the humble abbot. In a further identical analysis, Lavater used semi-shaded figures of walking men, their profiles methodically outlined: one carries himself proudly forward, while the other is relentlessly shackled by old age and infirmity.56 This focused attention on general appearance and its translation into a body profile. The curves of the anatomy, very clearly depicted here, are inverted, emphasized, and examined, shifting from dominance to dependence, from strength to debility. A fresh subject for portrayal was therefore established in the varied range of body types and shapes presented by the human form. Above all, this generated the new venture of representing that inexhaustible diversity and exploring the disparities between physical types, together with their many and varied categories.

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“Charlotte von Stein with the bust of her son Fritz,” cutout silhouette, 1780. Lavater produced a large number of silhouettes depicting only the face, but also extended the process to full-body portraits. His objective was to “read” an individual’s temperament from the contours of their entire body. “Goethe and Fritz von Stein,” copperplate engraving of a silhouette by Jean Gaspard Lavater, from his work Physiognomie, 2nd volume, 1776. The portrait of Goethe with Charlotte von Stein’s son is intended to represent the image of an educator. The tutor’s high forehead was a sign of intelligence, declared the physiognomist, while the figure of the child indicated “as yet hidden energy.”

William Hamlet the Elder, active from 1785 to 1816, George III, Queen Charlotte and three of their six daughters, Ransford Collection. Silhouette artists could compose scenes containing examples of clearly dissimilar bodily contours, as with this portrayal of King George III’s family. The physical variations themselves are precisely located: necks are covered or bare, and there are differences in the positions of the waists and in the sizes of the upper or lower body. Here, the silhouette artist has brought his work closer to the realm of painting with the discreet use of color.

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A few late 18th-century silhouettists adopted these general preoccupations. Their creations, still rare in the years from 1780–1800 due to the dominance of the “facial portrait,” reflect a clear engagement with the portrayal of certain distinctive bodily characteristics. This desire to show and emphasize defining features was undoubtedly new, born of the Age of Enlightenment. It is reflected, for example, in the silhouettes of the Comte and Comtesse Pierre de Corneillan:57 the count displays a gently rounded, protuberant stomach and his neck is somewhat sunken into his clothing; the countess’s waistline is high and narrow, the small of her back well defined. It is also evident in the late 18th century silhouettes of the English royal family, George III, Queen Charlotte and their three daughters.58 The use of black here demonstrates, to an unprecedented degree, the importance of form alone as a means of differentiating profiles. A chest may be sunken or ample, a waistline low or high, breasts may be minimized or emphasized, a body may be willowy or thickset. The profiles are all distinctive; the portrayal of these specific characteristics became the silhouettist’s primary objective and was central to his art. In this way, a series of “effigies” was created, with each figure displaying a particular posture and different features. The use of black here effectively imposes these distinctions. The image presents a variety of figures with different body shapes; lines are inverted and the effects are accentuated by the contrast between the forms and the background. The shadow transforms the contour into an identifying sign, even a major theme: a unique, eloquent, and conclusive reference point. These silhouettes were unlike any others; their profiles have been delineated and differentiated with equal care. The popularity of the silhouette was further promoted by more “superficial” practices. Although playful in nature, they nonetheless demonstrated the success of black shadows: “The silhouette, the black drawing, was so fashionable that it inevitably led to the shadow play created by the magic lantern, and to shadow spectacles known as ‘Chinese shadows’ becoming popular too.”59 Shadow theaters were indeed established in the gardens of the Palais-Royal in Paris during the 1780s, accounts of the spectacles being related in the Almanach des plaisirs de Paris in 1815. The extremely simple scenes recalled street theater performances such as “Harlequin becomes a nanny,” “Harlequin the jeweler,” “The Pedants,” and “Portrait of the painter.” In these cases the figures were undoubtedly fulllength, although their role had shifted towards that of entertainment.60

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Les Ombres Chinoises (Chinese Shadows), almanach of the PalaisRoyal, p. 12, 1786. Paris, BnF-Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra. Shadow theaters were established in the gardens of the PalaisRoyal in the 1780s. The plain, concise silhouette motif, with its ability to “individualize” figures, fascinated the new audience, who were eager to watch scenes from everyday life far removed from the “grand tradition.”

F ro m S h aded F aces to S h aded F i g ures

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FROM THE MEZZOTINT TO THE ROMANTIC AESTHETIC

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMERGENCE OF MORPHOLOGY

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page 28 Caspar David Friedrich, Chalk cliffs of Rügen, 1818, Winterthur, the Oskar Reinhart Museum. Caspar David Friedrich used the silhouettes and shaded images created in the Age of Enlightenment to full effect, transforming them into a Romantic motif. The human figure, depicted almost in silhouette form, is shown leaning towards an infinite space, insignificant and lost. The silhouette had become a symbol.

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hese processes clearly had a specific context. The 18th century also witnessed an entirely new approach to the study of bodily structures and appearance, explored from a semi-anatomical standpoint. This extended beyond the practice of creating caricatures and shaded silhouettes. A new manner of “looking” was established. There were changes to the way in which bodies were illustrated, drawn, and outlined, quite apart from the art of silhouetting. The depiction of the human profile underwent a radical transformation, as did the general image of the human body itself. Prints made in the second half of the century, in particular scenes by Philibert-Louis Debucourt and Isaac Cruikshank,61 reflect the endeavor to present a variety of bodily shapes, indicating physical “distinctions” in the process. These included features differentiating the aristocrat from the commoner, the master from the servant, the dominant from the subjugated, and the plump from the emaciated. The concise “drawing” of a body profile would be sufficient in itself to indicate a status. Joseph Franz von Goez shared exactly the same preoccupation: with his Exercices d’imagination de différents caractères et formes humaines,62 he claimed to present an unprecedented analysis of contrasting profiles. These included the “drunkard,” the “notable,” the “choleric,” the “financier,” the “postmaster,” the “pensive woman,” the “traveler,” the “attractive woman,” and the “flamboyant.” Although some of the characters might be artificial, they are portrayed with all their disparities and are intended to reproduce facets of the social landscape. The wording may well remain a little vague, and the terms somewhat “moralizing,” yet this nonetheless indicates the dawning of a new ambition. The aim was now to classify and organize types of physique and profile, together with different ways of wearing and displaying clothing. The aspirations behind such a project extended to the establishment of a collected series. This mirrored the plans for categorizing the animal kingdom resulting from the re-invention of natural history that occurred during the 18th century. Buffon, for example, developed a type of description featuring multiple profiles of animal species. He provided detailed accounts of changes in body shape, distinguished between the effects of food, environment and domestication, identified types of “degeneration,”63 and followed transformations in physical form. The ewe does not have the same form as

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the mouflon despite being its descendant, just as the domestic pig differs in shape from its direct ancestor, the wild boar. Their physical contours emphasize these changes, to the extent that their primitive origin is sometimes no longer “recognizable at first sight.”64 The prints in the Histoire naturelle reproduce forms that have been modified by gradual changes occurring over time. These examples are especially important as they sometimes suggest tiny shifts in the arrangement of features, all seen as indicating alterations in existence and life. At the same time, a specific genre for the depiction of the human form was established. Graphic artists and engravers now focused on the immediate physicality of the body, with all its nuances and diversity, and no longer limited themselves to the study of movement, positions, costumes, or general appearance. Clothing and its depiction ceased to be paramount: its visual effect, whether splendid or sober, no longer intruded on the image. The anatomy now took center stage, with all its identifying signs and its many distinctive forms. The undertaking became yet more intensive when the artist was able to capture the unique characteristics of a particular form, the body itself becoming the main focus of study to a previously unprecedented degree. New prints

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William Hogarth, The Stage Coach or The Country Inn Yard, print, 1747. London, Libraries and Guildhall Art Gallery. From the mid-18th century, William Hogarth was a pioneer of morphological investigation. The image presented here is not simply a “genre” scene, but an almost systematized depiction of alternating differences in physical structures and features. Grand academic references now gave way to the humbler examples of diversity in daily life. This approach was certainly comparable to silhouette art and contributed to its legitimacy.

T h e E n l i g h ten m ent and E m er g ence of Morp h o l o g y

James Gillray, The Installation Supper, as Given at the Pantheon, by the Knights of the Bath on the 26th May 1788, 1788, Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. James Gillray did not limit himself to producing a few caricatures, but paid close attention to differences in bodily structure. He was one of the first artists to relish portraying a huge variety of figures, far removed from the great classical tradition of anatomical drawing. His images displayed a very wide array of simple, distinctive physical features.

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made in London, Rome, Zurich, and Paris reflect this trend; the illustrators delight in emphasizing differences between individual profiles and physiques. Daniel Chodowiecki portrayed art buyers, highlighting the numerous distinctive aspects of their physical “lines”—from the slumped, expressionless, defeated individual to the lanky, cheerful smooth-talker.65 James Gillray’s card players display a variety of types of obesity,66 while Thomas Rowlandson depicted the latest readers of English newspapers, representing their extreme diversity through that of their body types.67 James Gillray’s prints illustrating the large-scale “suppers” held in Bath during the 1780s offer the most characteristic example.68 The artist takes delight in portraying the wide range of differences between the human forms shown, and the variety becomes an object of astonishment and curiosity. He depicts the faces, of course, the hairstyles and physiognomies, but also shows the posteriors, sagging or thin, the disparities in girth, the ample or bony chests, the long or sunken necks, and the backs, where the many differences in shape are indicated with inverted curves. The total originality of the enterprise lay in the research involved: the focus was on the diversity of physical structures, but this was sought in the normality of everyday life, rather than in “exceptional” cases of infirmity. These are trivial, commonplace scenes, where everyone is shown exactly as they are, highlighting a previously neglected concept of individuality. In the mid-18th century, Hogarth had already effectively turned these differences into a visual

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game. In his depiction of a stagecoach about to depart, for example, he explores the traits of the most anonymous characters by inverting the contours so that the figures seem to echo one another.69 The curve of an onlooker’s protuberant stomach is presented here as the reverse image of the hump on the back of the child behind him, while the “excessive” posterior of a female traveler struggling to enter the coach offers a contrast to the thin form of the assistant. These disparities are particularly striking, presented in their entirety to form a graphic symphony. Narat’s print of 179170 offers the most extreme example of this type. In his portrayal of the series of foreign princes supposedly offering support to the émigrés, personal features are exaggerated to the point of caricature in a far-ranging exploration of the grotesque, while the individuality of the characteristics is maintained. The body had become the site of intensive experiments with form, as the print had become the object of intensive research into diversity. The notion of “the proper manner” had all but lost its meaning in this context, having been overridden by a more direct and modest “manner,” with a considerable emphasis on individualization. With the invention of the silhouette, a number of approaches converged. They all revealed a specific moment in western culture: the individual profile acquired a new importance, becoming the focus of specific analysis, and the unique bodily form of each individual generated a totally unprecedented interest. It was also a time when middle-class society turned its attention to

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James Gillray, A Pig in a Poke, published in 1788 by S. W. Fores, Oxford, Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College. English caricaturists of the late 18th century were engaged in the exploration of bodily “varieties,” such as different types of corpulence or thinness. Through their curiosity, anatomical diversity became an object of investigation and portrayal. This evidently led to its depiction in silhouette form.

T h e E n l i g h ten m ent and E m er g ence of Morp h o l o g y

Philibert-Louis Debucourt, “Turcaret du Jour having a lesson in personal presentation,” in Manières et Modes, n°2, 1799. Paris, BnF. The asymmetrical aspect presented by the figures is the central feature of this illustration. It corresponds perfectly to the aim of “silhouetting,” which became increasingly prevalent in the late 18th century. This involved depicting all the possible differences in proportions and profiles with a few expressive lines, identifying physical disparities, and reflecting a completely transformed social spectrum.

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social diversity, and when the numerous and varied members of the population gained in prominence and worth. This period of regeneration involved new artistic approaches: an exclusive focus on “line,” an acceptance of peculiarities of form and the integration of “deformity” into the commonplace. Interest was no longer centered on that coherence or harmony of gestures and attitudes that had formerly preoccupied artists. Attention now turned to the “envelope” itself—the distinctive “lines” of bodies, contours, and profiles—with their infinite variations in the size of the chest, the protuberance of the stomach and the curvature of the back. The very word ”morphology,” a term first used by Goethe in 1780, was essentially waiting in the wings, with its study of functioning, integrated and interrelating bodily structures. Each physical form therefore has its own logic, its own internal structure and its own associations based on connection and unity. This had been noted by Nicolas Andry de Bois-Regard when he invented the word “orthopedy” in 1741.71 He carried out investigations into “spoon back” figures, to use the term of his day, thick waists, uneven shoulders and “crooked” spines. Andry suspected muscular disharmony as one possible cause of malformations, and was attentive to internal tensions, which generated form and asymmetry. A few years later Diderot extended the theme, examining it more deeply. He emphasized the notion of physical coherence, suggesting a “whole” that linked each part of the body, however individualized this might be. For the first time, he made a full investigation into the formation of a complete, jointed structure, including ill-proportioned examples: “Look at that man whose back and chest have become convex in form,” he [Diderot] writes.72 The individual in question would seem constrained, his face would reflect his pain, he would appear to be continually struggling, and the sight of his feet alone might indicate the fault in his posture. However, Diderot insisted that, even faced with a figure covered from head to toe, “Nature” would unerringly and immediately declare: “these are the feet of a hunchback.”73 An almost identical analysis was made by Petrus Camper during the same period, when he condemned the curiously debilitating effect of high heels on the body: “curved spine,”74 tensed feet, an alteration in the walk. The integrated and ascending forces are the first to be affected. The concept of a “total” organism, with its tensions and functions, was emerging. The

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particular significance of this “integrated whole”75 was emphasized by Claude-Henri Watelet in his reflections on art, and was the subject of the research embarked upon by physiognomists, such as Lavater, in connection with the apparent dispersion of the various parts of the body: “the human body is a plant, each part of which preserves the character of the stem.”76 The change in perception was emphatically confirmed through the term coined by William Hogarth. This was the “serpentine-line,” which referred to a concept hitherto “ignored”: an uninterrupted profile formed of “pleasing turns, and intertwistings,”77 creating a “line of grace”78 that extended over the whole body.

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T h e E n l i g h ten m ent and E m er g ence of Morp h o l o g y

BEFORE THE “SILHOUETTE”: E A R LY I N C A R N AT I O N S

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he original concept behind the term “silhouette” certainly requires exploration from a historical perspective. Much of its meaning is clearly lost when applied to traditional forms and representation, which naturally does nothing to detract from their excellence. This may be demonstrated by comparing examples from history. For instance, the old distinctions made between the temperaments had little association with bodily contours. The examples of physical appearance described within this highly classical framework of reference remain confusingly general. Exterior characteristics are noted, but with hardly any connection to actual bodily size. The sanguine individual was seen as “broad, well-rounded, neither fat nor lean, friendly, expansive, joyful, singing, laughing, fleshy, ruddy of face, and gracious.”79 The melancholic had an “earthy nature,

Abraham Bosse, Actors at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, ca. 1633–1634. Paris, BnF. Like many illustrators of his time, Abraham Bosse was attentive to differences of form among thin, fat, tall, and short individuals. One constant factor remained, however: the dress of the neo-classical era was not particularly close-fitting, and therefore did not lend itself easily to the theme of the silhouette, which was later to emerge.

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dry and cold, ponderous, covetous, tight-fisted and disparaging.”80 Physical proportions are indeed mentioned, but with scant detail. Portraits in the great classical tradition, however, demonstrate the predilection for strongly delineated figures imbued with vitality. From the Renaissance onwards, paintings of the human form exhibit a clearly defined structure, a quality of solidity. Their bodies are angular, their poses distinguished. Treatises on painting are explicit on the subject. The foremost aspect is the “air,” which includes “the facial features, the appearance of the hair, and the size;” next comes the “coloring,” which “reveals an individual’s true character,” and finally the “attitude,” which should be “fitting to the age, quality, and temperament of the individuals.”81 Charles Le Brun’s portraits, which were admired by Roger de Piles in his great treatise on classical painting, excelled in their “composition and drawing:”82 the Chancellor Séguier, for instance, cuts a majestic figure astride his horse, his face turned towards the spectator.83 Those of Andrea Mantegna offer a further example, and were admired by André Félibien in his Entretiens sur les vies et les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres, where he emphasizes a specific insistence on the part of the Paduan native: “to complete every part of the body, even those which are in shadow.”84 Furthermore, when Leonardo da Vinci created his image of a man in profile, he noted its vertical proportions,85 just as Albrecht Dürer calculated the degree of roundness displayed by his stout village woman;86 both were observing realism of form. Both increased the complexity of their expressive lines, established models for physical appearance, and determined bodily measurements, size of girth and height, favoring strong features and striking attitudes. These original observations emerged in the 15th century, as painters minutely explored the movements of the body. For example, the archers in the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian of 1475, painted by the Pollaiolo brothers, display all the positions adopted by the body when firing a crossbow, from the simple act of loading to the moment when the arrow is pulled taut. The figures are shown in every stage, from bending forwards to tilting backwards, their chests are variously depicted from an upright to a fully expanded position as they fire.87 Each body seems to play its part in a set of poses, just as each letter has its own role to perform in the alphabet. Jacques Callot carried out an identical exploration in the mid-17th century with his

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Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting, 1602. In his Treatise on Painting, Leonardo da Vinci carried out an unprecedented investigation of the range of different movements and their effects on bodily positions. His studies on “carrying,” for example, are crucial to an understanding of the postures involved in bearing a load. The “grand genre,” however, while scrupulously respecting anatomical balance, did not direct painters towards the exploration of various bodily forms.

B efore t h e “ S i l h ouette ” : E ar l y I ncarnations

Jacques Callot, Three Arquebusiers: this forms part of the series entitled “The Military Exercises” (1635). The figure on the left is seen loading his firearm, the figure on the right is placing his on its support, while the middle figure is aiming and preparing to fire. Here, Jacques Callot demonstrates his knowledge of the various movements and postures involved in firing an arquebus, depicting the leg span, the tilt of the body and the horizontal positions of the arms. Yet the focus is still on gestures and activity rather than on diversity of body type.

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images of arquebusiers, whose figures are portrayed in stages, from an upright position, with the weapon raised, to the combat position, where the weapon is horizontal and the body is leaning forward, the legs are firmly planted and placed one in front of the other.88 The arquebusier is shown demonstrating the many poses involved in the action. The body is depicted in these images as a model of diversity, as different postures were explored. Attention was paid to the various angles of inclination and the accuracy of the leaning pose, as a large number of increasingly complex figures were portrayed. However, there was as yet no sign of the images introduced by the term “silhouette” in the mid-18th century. This is firstly due to the fact that the objects implied by the term were incompatible with pure classical themes. Treatises on painting refer to these themes alone: a painting should be “beautiful and noble,” the limbs “large and full,” the draperies “seemly and appropriate.” The ambition was to reflect “the most beautiful of nature’s works.”89 The line itself should not be manifest, distinct or abrupt. It should convey the suppleness, and even the softness of the flesh. This is confirmed by the lectures held at the Academy in the late 17th century: “Whatever the substance may be, the surface is always covered with something which softens the harshness of the line, there is always a small, almost imperceptible covering of down on even the most delicate skin.”90

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Conversely, the silhouette, invented in the 18th century, was specifically based on effects of the utmost simplicity. Images were pared down, “plain” and also hastily executed. These produced unexpected results, in particular the emergence of individuality, although the subjects themselves might be totally unclassifiable or even completely ungainly. This marked a radical change and coincided with others that occurred at the same time, especially in the realm of stage and theater with regard to classical drama: “there were no more great characters, or grand passions, only the writer, the businessman, the lawyer, the judge, the politician, the citizen, the magistrate, the financier, the lord, the steward.”91 Eighteenth-century theater laid claim to being “universal.” It contained a large number of diverse characters, just as late 18th-century prints featured a motley crowd of figures. This certainly marked a change in social perception. It resulted in a totally unprecedented curiosity in the analysis of distinctive morphological aspects, contrasting bodily shapes and their countless variations. A new world was emerging, where the primary focus was on diversity of physical appearance and body types. There are of course traditional prints that appear to precede the silhouette artists’ innovations, showing bodily infirmities or afflictions. These deformities were also explored within classical culture: “shoulders higher than heads, broken or twisted arms, legs of different lengths, hair more voluminous than clothing.”92 Such aberrant figures were magnificently portrayed by Jacques Callot in his images of the grotesque. Félibien, perhaps more formal by nature, objected to these works, which he derided as images “of disproportion and irregularity rather than an imitation of symmetry and the proper conventions.”93 Outside the canon, they suggest the unthinkable, the surprising. They explore the unusual, establishing a tension between the painter of grotesque images and the “great” artist. However, there was still no portrayal of the many and varied bodily forms seen in everyday situations. There was no attempt to register the diverse figures or peculiarities of nature, which might be found in salons or streets. Callot’s prints remain profound and incomparable, like the expressions portrayed by Bosch or Leonardo da Vinci. These were intended to appear grotesque, but clearly suggest infirmity rather than the varied profiles one comes across in daily life. They define a genre that depicted the disabled and impoverished, the deformed and the

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Leonardo da Vinci, Manuscript L, 1497–1502, fol. 3 recto: man’s face in profile, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’institut. This is a line drawing of a man’s profile by Leonardo da Vinci. The curved line beneath the face would appear to suggest a form of obesity. Both bulky and thin figures are presented in classical drawings.

B efore t h e “ S i l h ouette ” : E ar l y I ncarnations

ragged, rather than portraying figures drawn from everyday life, with its “limitless” spectrum of unique and distinguishable body types. This enables us to define the domain of the silhouette more clearly. Three themes subsequently coexisted: there was the rough sketch, which suggested an appearance with a few bold strokes; the concise line, which delineated the entire outline in the most abbreviated fashion, and finally the unique outline of an individual likeness. These three themes were based on the “simplest” element: the cursory outline. They essentially suggest three totally new approaches to portraying figures in the 18th century. Firstly, importance was given to sensitivity, the instant feeling of appreciation that occurs when the senses are engaged; secondly, a figure had to be depicted in its entirety, with an emphasis on the convergence of all the parts of the body to give a stronger impression of the whole; finally came the importance of personalization, emphasizing the faithful reproduction of a bodily outline in order to highlight its unique quality. The word silhouette clearly interprets these three aspects, all of which are given form through the simplification of line: a new language for new visions.

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T H E Q U E S T F O R D E TA I L : T H E T R I U M P H O F T H E “FULL-LENGTH” PROFILE PORTRAIT

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he process of creating “full length” profiles, as developed by 19thcentury silhouette artists, revealed both the topical nature and the striking quality of their art. As work with black images evolved and extended, the art of shaping a profile became a form of cartography. The use of shading to depict the human form introduced a more systematic approach than that of Lavater.94 New lines were devised, resulting in greater exactitude and variety than had previously been thought possible. In addition to profiles of individual faces, there were series where examples of different morphological traits could be compared and particular features were portrayed. In this way, the world of shadows was brought to life. Paradoxically, the contrast between black and white accentuated this all the more emphatically, directing the gaze almost exclusively towards the differences between individuals and their features. William Henry Brown’s95 The “DeWitt Clinton” Train, a découpage made in the United States in the 19th century, offers a typical example of this, with its driver, its engineers, and its passengers seen through the wide apertures in the small carriages. Cut out in black, they all stand out distinctly, sitting erect or reclining, stout or lean, relaxed or constrained. The theme of morphological diversity was paramount; its portrayal became the determined aim of every silhouette artist and developed into a systematic comparison of forms. Each body differed from the next down to the most minute details, each line stood out in contrast to the others, as diversity became the specific focus of study and portrayal. This accounts for the peculiar authenticity of these forms.

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William Henry Brown, The “DeWitt Clinton” Train, ca. 1850. Hartford, Connecticut Historical Society. The silhouette artist paid meticulous attention to postures and bodily structures. The use of black in itself necessitates this focus on detail due to its stark simplicity, which accentuates the pareddown line of the profile. This effectively created both a new type of perception and a new genre. The figures are all distinctive, not simply with regard to clothing or posture, but also on account of their diverse forms. Necks are sunken or more upright, backs straight or tilted, chests are rounded to a greater or lesser degree, and the figures vary in bulk and posture. The silhouette as a “contemporary” motif had now emerged.

William Langford Holland, trade label (reverse), ca. 1780–1790, Fox-Smith Collection. Silhouette art was established as a profession in the early 19th century. These artists were certainly painters, but also specialized in “shadow profiles.” Clients could visit their shops to buy a rapidly executed “black” portrait.

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Male fashions in the 19th century may well have contributed to this growing emphasis on linear contrasts: jackets had replaced doublets, frock coats had replaced tabards, close-fitting attire had supplanted flowing garments. Thomas Jefferson, writing to George Washington in 1787, declared: “I think a modern in an antique dress as just an object of ridicule as an Hercules or Marius with a periwig and chapeau bras.”96 The clothes worn by men in the early decades of the 19th century followed the shape of the body more closely than those of women, enabling the silhouette artist to give further emphasis to the new “authentic” character of the outline. A number of early 19th-century works testify to this new, sophisticated approach. It is exemplified by Saint-Mémin and his portraits, which number over a thousand, as well by William Hubard and his images of gentlemen with their varied, sharply delineated forms, and by Benjamin Crombie, with his collection of expressive portraits published under the title of Modern Athenians.97 The most striking examples in this abundant body of work, however, are unquestionably those of Augustin Édouart. His full-length figures, cut out in the most meticulous detail, were also the most renowned of their time. This is the apogee of silhouette art, where the aim is to reproduce the “character” in each line of a profile minutely explored in every last detail. Augustin Édouart led an eventful life; he crossed continents, having launched his career in France in the late 18th century before pursuing his activities in England and subsequently emigrating to America, producing tens of thousands of portraits. The sense of authenticity of portrayal and the “true likeness”98 that he achieved were regularly cited in England as praise of his work, together with the noticeable “grace and spirit”99 of the completed profiles. The appearance as a whole was of paramount importance, and his portrayal of its unique character was always hailed as exemplary: “not only the countenance of the individual, but the prevailing tone of character, is preserved with the most discriminating accuracy.”100 The contrast between black and white had generated a new physical object of investigation. Individual differences in body verticality, including those already suggested in the 18th century,101 were developed and researched by Augustin Édouart at a deeper level. He explored the axes and flexions of the body, often unnamed, in unprecedented detail. This led to a limitless variety of bodily forms, and even of personalities. Indeed, the silhouette artist

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established new distinctions, such as the position of the waist, head carriage, the curvature of the legs, and the slant of the torso. He studied and developed these examples to create a vast morphological gallery where each image differed from the next. In this way, he was able to present increasingly dissimilar subjects, placed side by side, in proximity, or wearing similar costumes or garments, the better to accentuate their contrasting features. The profiles drawn in England and America remain the most “expressive,” although many of these were lost in a shipwreck in 1840. For example, the difference between the profile of the Theatre Royal actor Doughton, drawn in 1829, and that of the sculptor Angus Flechner, created at the same time, amounts to more than a broader outline and a heftier, more portly physique.102 The actor’s waistline is slightly lower, his chest and head are tilted backwards, his neck more markedly swathed. With Flechner’s profile, on the other hand, the emphasis appears to be on the chest area, as the subject leans forward, his neck unconstrained. The perception that each profile is unique imbues the silent images with meaning. This gives us the curious sensation of observing two poses captured in their immediacy, with all their contrasts and verisimilitude. Yet more striking is the totally convincing and realistic impression produced by these lines, despite the lack of any words to define the distinctive leaning or bending movements they depict. The silhouette artist has translated bodily differences into material form, identifying and accentuating them in unprecedented detail, although he had no terms at his disposal to describe them. The gaze alone can discern these differences, for which no words existed. It is important to note how many different parts of the body—chests, waists, and heads—are depicted with all their physical dissimilarities, while at the same time each appears to be engaged in an interplay with the vertical body-line. A culture of appearance was established and portrayed, its variations physically explored rather than defined through the medium of language. It was during this period, in the early 19th century, that the silhouette found its “genre.” Full-length profile portraits displayed increasingly sharp distinctions, allowing a greater variety of “characters” to emerge. A new domain in the art of portraiture was established, in the form of a shadow image of the entire human figure, whose “comprehensive” outline was intended to reflect each individual personality.

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Augustin Édouart, Series of Silhouettes. From left: Edmund Law Rogers, Lloyd N. Rogers, Eleanor A. Rogers, A. Boisaubin and Sir Walter Scott, 1831, Edinburgh. The series of silhouettes cut by Augustin Édouart in the 1830s serves as a very clear indication of the silhouette artist’s aim. The bodies are distinguishable by the differences in the positions of their waists, the emphasis on their chests, the curve of their backs, and the thickness of their contours. The silhouette initiated an unprecedented exploration of diverse bodily structures.

T h e Q uest for D etai l

One “cultural” practice was especially significant in the case of English emigrants. This was the custom of having one’s “silhouette” made before departure, as suggested by one of the advertisements for the Lyceum Gallery in London in 1840: “Do not forget to have your likeness taken by the pentegraphical machine for one shilling.”103 This advice is of particular interest as an indication of certain highly important factors: the emphasis on resemblance, the implicit reference to a document certifying the subject’s identity, the mechanical aspect of the process, which would ensure a faithful likeness, and finally its cost, which was within the means of the most modest incomes. The advertisement includes a fascinating offer: “daguerreotype miniatures” might also be obtained for the sum of “five shillings.” The novelty of this suggestion is not due to its quoted price, but to the fact that these two techniques were juxtaposed, and were even in competition for a brief period. This shows beyond doubt that the silhouette was the precursor of photography. It also provided a response to the desire to have one’s portrait made by semi-mechanical means, an aspiration typical of a particular moment in our history.

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THE COMPLEX AND CURIOUS REALM OF THE SHADOW

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he shadow possessed other characteristics besides its ability to portray individuality and its precision. It also paved the way for further innovations, each of which created its own particular effects. In this way, it contributed to an aesthetic in harmony with the culture of an era. This concerns the scenes devised by some 19th-century silhouettists. They contain figures, décor and objects, and possess an almost hieratic quality, the shadowed forms being distributed within a particular setting to form a tableau. With these examples, the artists were venturing into the domain of composition, combining characters and suggesting situations. This contrivance affected the very “spirit” of the images. The environment

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Augustin Édouart: The Magic Lantern, 19th century, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the beginning of the 19th century, the magic lantern reflected the success of shadow art, emphasizing its expressive power. In this case, it also enabled the silhouettist to venture into the realm of genre scenes. Here, he has composed a tableau akin to the shadow theater. There is a Romantic aspect to these types of scene, with their unreal, dreamlike quality and suggestions of nostalgia.

Augustin Édouart: Silhouette of the Family and Guests of Dr Cheesman, 1840. New York, New York Historical Society.

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created in this way has a highly distinctive appearance; its paler elements, accentuating the dominant presence of the black shadows, create a curious atmosphere. Neutral and muted in tone, the background is all but effaced as the black stands out strongly against the sketched setting. Its presence becomes disconcerting, as the characters lose their assurance, acquiring in its place an air of strangeness. The profiles seem fixed, as the area around them appears to fade away. The prevailing impression is that of an imaginary, dreamlike realm. Here, the distance between the shadowed forms and the allusive real world is taken to extremes. This gives the scenes an “insubstantial” quality, with their suggestions of fleeting presences briefly materializing in a destabilized world, or even of forgotten figures who have reemerged in a hazy setting conjured by memory. It is as if a collection of clearly identifiable characters had left a trace of their presence in a remote location, to serve as a “memorial.” The theme shifts to the world of the shadow theater, as the spectator is caught between illusion and reality. This is also the case with the images of Sarah Wilstar Pennock and her daughter, whose figures were cut out by Augustin Édouart.104 Their black shaded forms are depicted sitting in a colorless living room. Their profiles are clearly individualized and their physical appearance is certainly emphasized, but they are placed in a featureless world, a setting without depth. The visual impact is of prime importance here; it creates the impression that these are individuals who have departed this life, and have returned to their former abode. A further

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example is provided by the characters peopling a more complex scene, where Stephen O’Driscoll portrays “A patrician who gives alms to an old Jewish beggar with a dejected hound.”105 Three black shadow profiles are depicted in a street painted in “neutral” colors. Its transparent shop windows afford hazy glimpses of the wares inside, and it presents a vague impression of general hustle and bustle with passersby and horses. Here, too, there are recognizable figures, placed in a setting that is both improbable and familiar. The scene then wavers, as reality gives way to illusion. This is an artistic composition, yet it verges on the world of dreams: the silhouette has become a simulacrum. These shadow images display an aspect of Romanticism. Color is certainly absent, although it was extolled by Charles Baudelaire in his definition of the aesthetic, which prevailed at the beginning of the century.106 Yet the work is imbued with an indefinable sense of mystery, which clearly corresponds to the Romantic sensibility, with its predilection

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Family Musical Scene, 19th century, London, Private Collection. This tableau is composed of black shadow figures set in a vaguely sketched background. It also presents a Romantic theme with its play on the real and the unreal. The delineated forms convey the expression of the various movements in a striking fashion.

T h e C o m p l e x and C urious R ea l m of t h e S h adow

for dreams and nostalgia, and its attachment to the realm of fantasy and the world of the inner self. The silhouette clearly offered considerable artistic possibilities, with its potential for a variety of different approaches. Its “photographic” aspect remained dominant in the early 19th century, as previously unexplored morphological characteristics were investigated in unprecedented detail, using quasi-scientific or mechanical methods. It was also linked to the realm of aesthetic sensibility: several pictures reflect a decided leaning towards the imagination and its wanderings, the interplay of the real and the unreal. In this way, silhouette art connected with the aesthetic practices of its time, playing its own part in the process.

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THE ROMANTIC PERSPECTIVE

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aving considered the semi-photographic aspect of creating a profile and the appeal of the mechanical processes involved, together with the emergence and scope of morphological study, the aesthetic perspective should now be explored. Its role is particularly important given that the silhouette became an increasingly widespread form during the early 19th century, establishing its presence as an artistic image in paintings, prints, and pictures. This may have offered the silhouette richer possibilities, but it also introduced a shift in emphasis. The painter who practiced the technique now became a mere “cutter.” The blackness of the image lost its density. The use of color meant that these forms could no longer be defined as silhouettes in the traditional sense of the word. However, the shaded figure took on a new role as it assumed the appearance of a silhouette, although it was not designated as such. Its presence endowed works of art with unprecedented meaning, the most characteristic example being the painting by Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. This image of a dark figure, viewed from behind and outlined against the light as he observes the world of nature extending endlessly before him, serves as a symbol of the Romantic vision. His gaze lost in the contemplation of infinity, he casts his dreams into a limitless space.107 The “phantom” figures of these silhouetted images, fragile shadows generally depicted from behind and turning towards the light of some vast horizon, expressed the Romantic ethos itself with greater intensity than ever before. They suggested inner darkness and the quest for the infinite. This contrast between the shadow and the world around it epitomizes a state of disquietude and vulnerability. The forces prevail, and inner life is experienced with heightened intensity. Slender, sombre figures, these individuals are contemplating immensity. Their presence kindles the imagination. In comparing the compositions conceived by silhouette artists and those created by painters, or even engravers, two approaches appear to coexist. These two distinct perspectives are nonetheless connected. In the former case, strongly delineated shadows are imposed on a faintly sketched and colorless background, whereas in the second instance, a grandiose world dominates the shadowed figures, reducing them to a marginal presence. The roles of silhouette and scene appear to have been reversed. The setting, almost transparent in one example, forms the very heart of the other. The

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Jean-Jacques Grandville, Shepherd’s Star, illustration featuring in a chapter of Les Étoiles by Méry, 1849. The star image lies at the heart of a Romantic theme characterizing Jean-Jacques Grandville’s work: the spectators are simple, slender black shadows set before a majestic horizon.

Caspar David Friedrich, Sunset (Brothers), silhouette of two men set in a landscape at twilight, 1830–1835. Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum. The use of shadow here illustrates a symbolic theme central to Romanticism: the individual gazes out over an infinite expanse, which engulfs and eclipses his fragile presence.

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shadowed figures switch places. Both images, however, are dominated by an identical feeling of agitation; there is an all-pervading sense of frailty and fragility, of a shift towards the realm of dreams and meditation. The use of shadow here gives greater prominence than ever to the notion of the inward gaze, the “spiritual eye”108 of the Romantic vision itself, creation originating from “within.” Those dark forms depicted contemplating infinity share this aspiration. The very simple image of desolation is likewise accentuated by the shadows and the austerity of their outlines. This was a new motif in art history: shaded figures meditate on the unfathomable, suggesting a focus on the inner self. They are lost in a new infinity. The motif is also symbolic, as the stark appearance of the silhouetted outline presents a visual contrast to the limitless panorama with its abundance of lines, suggesting the vulnerability of the observer himself. The theme is repeated in Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea, Two Men at Twilight, and Two Men by the Sea Contemplating the Moon, all of which depict landscapes where fragile, meditative figures turn towards the endless far horizon. It is also to be found in the work of Jean-François Millet, with his images of silhouettes lost in the midst of vast expanses, and in Jean-Jacques Grandville’s prints of stars, dating from 1849. These works feature shadowed, almost colorless figures turning towards a fathomless and star-strewn sky. Delicate, sensitive images, they stand before the overwhelming immensity of the cosmos.109 The notion of escaping to infinity became the dominant ideal. The “children” of this era nurtured their dreams, possibly disillusioned by an

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existence that the Revolution110 had failed to transform. They expressed a sense of the sublime and a melancholy that has been attributed to the decline of religion in the modern world, an unprecedented form of disquiet and dissatisfaction. There was an inclination towards “sad reflections on the traditional faith in God.”111 At all events, early 19th-century art explored both the frailty of the silhouette and the fathomless nature of inner desolation, as it absorbed itself in the “sweet breath of nostalgia.”112 In this way, it both shaped and popularized the theme of the shadowed figure, which became an image of helpless fragility faced with an all-powerful cosmos. Yet more characteristic is the predilection for depicting tiny silhouettes lost in the infinite expanse of the natural world. Such works include Gustave Doré’s Pyrenean landscapes, with their minuscule figures seen walking over bridges between the chasms,113 William Turner’s views of the Alps, where rescuers take the form of fragile black shadows,114 or images of towns, such as Charles Nodier’s Paris historique of 1838, with their semi-nocturnal scenes that give life to the implausible-looking shadows at the foot of colossal façades.115 One theme prevails: the dark outlines suggest mystery and restlessness. The silhouettes here, with their suggestion of vulnerability, enhance this world of dreams and meditation. This lay at the heart of early 19th-century artistic vision.

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Samuel Rogers, “Italy”, The Great Saint Bernard, illustration by William Turner, London, 1830. These frail shadows are lost in a landscape both majestic and infinite. Here, the black silhouettes form the perfect expression of Romantic sensibility.

T h e R o m antic P erspecti v e

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A P R O C E S S E X PA N D S : PRESS AND IMAGE

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page 52 Gustave Doré, “Long and hard was the battle,” in Fierabras, National Legend, translated by Mary Lafon, Paris, 1857. Gustave Doré used shadows to enshroud medieval scenes in an air of romantic mystery, but also to emphasize the powerful force of a movement through simplicity of line alone. The shadow intensifies the gesture through the extreme concision of its contours, producing the maximum effect with the minimum of lines.

THE SILHOUETTE

uring the Romantic period, the silhouette was endowed with new significance and energy. The black shaded figure became a familiar image as a genre was established, with its own forms and objects. It also acquired greater richness through a new emphasis on aestheticism in addition to its characteristic simplicity of line. That very simplicity, however, was an essential factor. Black-shaded forms possessed a highly distinctive quality of concision that extended beyond portraiture. They also possessed their own creative power, as demonstrated by silhouette artists and revealed in a number of Romantic images that explored the shadow, enriching and enhancing its complexity. This is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Gustave Doré, whose grandiose scenes were combined with sharply delineated shadowed figures depicted in movement. In his illustrations for the Contes drolatiques, for example, Balzac’s hero René is shown leaning heavily forward; his body braced, he grips his cane as he strides up the mountain pathway on the “Grand Moustier.” The slope is vertiginously steep and the figure is tiny—his face is invisible, yet his movements are forceful. All is portrayed through deliberate exaggeration: the uneven shoulders, the hunched form, the great strides; everything suggests extreme effort in just a few shaded strokes.116 René struggles, the mountain resists, but he progresses upwards. The abbreviated portrayal of the dark figure has an obvious impact: it is reduced to a few succinct lines, all of which are exaggerated, yet perfectly calculated. An identical technique was applied to depict Fierabras’s fight in the medieval novel illustrated by Doré. Here, a simple shaded profile is outlined against the background of a luminous forest: the accentuated curved lines forming the figure of the combatant transform his body into an arc: the torso is arched, the sword drawn back, the arms raised, and the legs bent. The line is rounded to an impossible degree, the better to portray the potential force of the blow.117 Intensity is suggested through the tensions in the shadowed form. The black figure motif therefore possessed an additional characteristic, which expressed itself through these examples. It no longer simply reflected appearance or posture; its ability to depict movement, rather than demeanor, now came to the fore, bringing a sense of force and impetus. A few lines were used to accentuate those aspects suggesting dynamism and direction alone. There is no “anecdotal” element here, and no superfluous detail. The

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Frédéric Bouchot, “L’envie” (“Desire”), in Paris comique, livre album, Paris, 1842. With their shadowed figures and their postures reduced to the simplest form, the characters presented in the albums of 1820– 1840 gained an intensity of expression as a result of these apparent “reductions.” The suffering of the man seen in the background is encapsulated in a few brief lines. In this way, the silhouette had a separate existence beyond the “black” images of the first silhouette artists. Gustave Doré, print for the Contes drolatiques by Honoré de Balzac, Librairie Garnier Frères, 1860. The Romantic image of frail silhouettes confronted with an infinite expanse was treated with remarkable diversity during the 1840s. They might also be depicted as fragile forms in the midst of a monumental and dominant urban space.

mute line is abbreviated; an entire gesture or expression is captured in a few curves. This explains its obvious narrative potential and the presence of such figures in a number of varied settings, quite apart from paintings or the portraits executed by silhouette artists. In the Petits Albums pour rire of 1854,118 for example, a few shaded images of tense and contorted forms, their hands clamped over their ears, are sufficient to illustrate the unpleasantly noisy aspect of life in Parisian apartments. Frédéric Bouchot uses a single dark form, bent almost double as he huddles into himself, to make a forceful image of the cold Parisian streets in 1842.119 Rodolphe Töpffer, however, certainly went the furthest in exploiting the interplay between black shadows and movement during the 1840s. He even invented a totally new practice: that of developing a story in comic-book fashion, as the action unfolds through a series of visual images. This was a radical rejection of Academism.120 The experiences of his heroes, Monsieur Cryptogame, Doctor Festus, Monsieur Crépin, and Monsieur Vieux-Bois121 are recounted through a series of hectic and boisterous scenes. The use of “simple” figures lies at the heart of the process. The story is more effectively depicted on account of their immediate visual impact. They also convey meaning in a forceful manner, so that words become superfluous: the forms are instantly expressive, the bodies flexible and “unfettered,” allowing their movements to

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A P rocess E x pands : P ress and I m a g e

Rodolphe Töpffer, a drawing from The Story of Mr. Cryptogame, Geneva, 1845. The albums created by Rodolphe Töpffer during the 1840s prefigure the comic book, with their simplified, vaguely shadowed characters frequently depicted performing explosive and dynamic movements. The visual effect of these figures is especially striking on account of their “abbreviated,” sketch-like form.

be “decoded” at first glance. Here, the shadowed figure motif joins forces with the brief sketch. The dynamics are centered solely on the main lines of movement: an extended stride indicates that a character is running, an exaggeratedly tilted body illustrates a fall, while dramatically angled arms suggest a rapid escape. The image became a display of dynamic movement, all focused on the arms and legs.122 This largely unprecedented circulation of silhouetted images from the 1830s onwards was favored by certain specific, even crucial, circumstances. The first of these was the appearance of a new type of engraving invented by the Englishman Thomas Bewick in the early 19th century. The process, which involved carving blocks of wood, created a new surface for engraving. The wood was not cut along its length, but across the grain, so that the format was narrow rather than wide. The material certainly offered more resistance, having gained in hardness through this technique, and it also acquired a more uniform appearance. This transformed the engraved line, liberating its potential despite the reduced format. Edges became sharper, the line was freer, unconstrained by the veining in the wood. The other major factor was the new manner of interspersing printed image and text. The smaller surface area of the engravings, their precision and the manner of their insertion into the page and text brought about a complete change. Hence, the appearance of these “strongly delineated little black figures immediately suggesting the cutting edge of the tool,”123 which have long been noted by art historians. Hence, too, the vignettes printed together with

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the texts themselves, which appeared in quantities of books during the 1830s, with their briskly drawn images and their little figures, often depicted as silhouettes. This marked “the entry of image into text”124 as emphasized by Rémi Blachon in his history of wood engraving: the “thin” surface of the engraved wood could now be inserted into the same sheet on the keyboard of the printing press. Pages were brought to life, as the text interacted with the illustrations it framed: words encircled images, images surrounded words.125 Sometimes, a playful version of the silhouette itself would be added, in the form of the profile of a famous individual, for example, hidden among the welter of detail in a drawing126 to whet readers’ curiosity still further. In this way, pages were transfigured and the theme of the silhouette unquestionably expanded. The advent of the illustrated press, with its demand for simple, lively images, also played a part in this dissemination. The transformation of the wood engraving process obviously facilitated the emergence of this type of medium, as did lithography, whereby images were drawn directly onto limestone, and which was invented at around the same time.127 These circumstances favored hastily, even roughly, executed drawings. They also favored an abbreviated style of illustration in which life was reproduced with just a few lines and action was intensified, as rhythm was combined with lightness of touch. This was quite simply “one of the most important phases in the development of the press during the 19th century.”128 These developments were given further impetus by the emergence of a new readership in the early 19th century: the daily press run of Parisian newspapers alone had reached 50,000 at the end of the Bourbon Restoration period.129 They also benefitted from the mechanization of the press and of

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“Noble émulation,” in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, Paris, 1842–1843. Here, black shadows are used to focus attention on movement, and to accentuate the dynamic quality of the contours to the exclusion of any extraneous details. In this way, they convey all the striking visual effects of the action.

A P rocess E x pands : P ress and I m a g e

“Le graphisme de la danse,” in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, Paris, 1842–1843. In the 1840s, silhouette drawings were the inspiration for long, thin forms reduced to all but a single black line. This enabled physical movement to be depicted with an unprecedented and almost explosive sense of freedom.

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paper production,130 both of which resulted in a far wider circulation of periodicals. The appearance of newspaper pages, in particular, underwent radical transformations from the 1830s onwards. Illustrations were chiefly characterized by brevity of line, reducing images to silhouetted contours. One case in point is the depiction of Venice with its gondoliers outlined against the sky,131 which appeared in L’Image, a periodical devoted to wood engraving, in 1847. Further examples are the sketches of racetracks, reflecting a popular diversion of the time, in which horses are represented with just a few slender black lines.132 The silhouettes featured in the Journal des enfants were also intended to suggest an image rather than to portray it in detail. The “Promenade des Chinois” for instance, which appeared in 1846, shows simply drawn black figures in wide robes strolling down a huge, tree-lined walkway, forming a fanciful and curious image.133 Newspapers and books now combined text and image to an unprecedented extent, displaying the principle of “plurality”134 and the “typographic mix” noted by Ségolène Le Men. This evidently led to the emergence of a distinctive approach, which it is important to emphasize. Both characters and actions were portrayed with greater simplicity and assurance. An example of this is the silhouetted image of a stagecoach and horses: the animals are galloping

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flat out, while the human figures in the scene are depicted off-balance to portray “extreme” speed.135 The dark forms of passersby shown crossing a street, their uneven strides indicating the force of a rainstorm,136 provide a further illustration of this development, as do the leaping dancers portrayed with a few slender black lines, whose “impossible” leg extensions are intended to suggest a wild burst of energy.137 A new type of iconography was established, with objects depicted in abbreviated, concentrated form. Silhouettes, with their shadowed outlines, were a notable example of this phenomenon. The comprehensive new developments in newspaper and book printing in the early 19th century clearly both favored and furthered this process. It is important to emphasize these transformations, the forms they took and, above all, the effects they produced. They directed the gaze, revealing hitherto unnoticed aspects of the body, and, in particular, they enabled movement, contortion, and position to be reproduced in a concentrated form. Above all, they demonstrated the consequences of these completely new practices, which introduced the art of observing the body and of scrutinizing its appearance in everyday situations. Perhaps most notably of all, the innovations affected spectators at a highly personal level, inducing them to perceive themselves differently. In this way, the new art had a lasting effect, introducing a different manner of visualizing the body, including, ultimately, one’s “own.” Over time, these effects extended further, as the practices gained in complexity and richness.

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A P rocess E x pands : P ress and I m a g e

A W O R D E X PA N D S : PHYSICAL AND MORAL SIGNIFICANCE

T Print from the periodical La Silhouette, Journal des caricatures de l’Aube, 1840. Paris, BnF. The word “silhouette” was not restricted to shaded figures. In the 1840s, it also defined “linear” prints that reproduced the unique features distinguishing every individual. This is demonstrated by the character from the La Silhouette periodical, who is distributing images of their own full-length “silhouettes” to the spectators.

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he success of the silhouette motif in these early decades of the 19th century cannot, however, be reduced to its impact as a visual image alone. The popularity of the word itself is no less noteworthy. As the theme gained prominence it became more widespread; no longer limited to an iconographic context, its usage gradually extended to encompass a variety of applications. From the 1820s onwards it was used to enhance the titles of books and journals, evoking descriptions of characters or places. It also gave rise to metaphors, analogies, and allusions. Its definition could no longer be restricted to black shadowed images, despite the fundamental importance of this motif. Its meaning was now applied in a wider, more comprehensive context. The theme of line and contour nonetheless remained dominant, prompting a new, definitive manner of viewing the human body and its profile. The crucial and obvious challenge here was to translate this new approach to seeing and observing into a material form. When, in 1840,138 Clémence Robert chose the title Paris silhouette for her description of the “big” city, she detailed certain monuments that stood out prominently as dark, shadowed outlines, but her words mainly evoke images of forms and contours. In 1818, Desquiron de Saint-Agnan had entitled his description of “contemporary”139 figures Silhouette politique et morale. In this way, he had transferred the “cutout” motif into a social context, extending its application beyond the domain of the body. The Journal des caricatures was still called La Silhouette in 1830,140 a way of indicating that its “sharp-eyed caricaturists” were keen to expose all the “vices and follies,”141 both moral and physical, to be found in everyday life. The word “silhouette” had therefore clearly expanded its field of application, and was used even in the most abstract moral and social contexts. No longer confined to the

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A W ord E x pands :

P h y sica l and Mora l S i g nificance

Honoré Daumier, “Le distrait, peintre,” in Silhouettes, 8 (previous page) and “Combien je regrette…” (above) for Le Charivari, lithographs, 1841, Paris, BnF. Honoré Daumier’s version of the silhouette was a figure no longer defined by its black shading, but by its energy and its pared-down, expressive lines.

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shadowed profile, it contributed to the realms of metaphor and representation, translating its popularity into an appropriation of new domains and subjects. It naturally remained strongly linked to the notion of physicality, however. This was central to its meaning and related fundamentally to line. Attention was now focused on the black contour. Figures were depicted as if cut out and set against a background, although not as a shaded form. The contour became a fine boundary, delineating the frame of a body to correspond as closely as possible to the subject’s anatomy. With these images, the use of color now became legitimate, as indeed did the addition of facial features and expressions, as well as physical details within the outlines of the figure. From the early 19th century onwards, the definition of the word “silhouette” was based on this perspective of the body, rather than being limited to describing black shaded images. Therein lay its novelty: bodily contours and their precise depiction were emphasized to an unprecedented degree. This was shown by Raymond Brucker in 1841, when describing his conception of the obliging and generous “humanitarian” character in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes. His remarks confirm the overriding importance accorded to the contours of the body, without any reference to projected shadows: “I do not need to present the humanitarian’s ideas in their entirety, just the shape of his silhouette in a general context, with no allusion to personality.”142 Honoré Daumier demonstrated this perspective still more emphatically in giving the title “Silhouettes” to his series of seven lithographs in 1840. This set of images contains no depiction of a shadowed profile, and neither faces nor physiognomy are obliterated. Instead, greater prominence is given to pose, demeanor, and bearing, as subjects were portrayed with stronger emphasis on their physical features. For instance, the “distracted painter” represented in this series is shown with his hand tensed over his work, his brow creased as he stares at the canvas, his arm ready to proceed, his chest upright—yet he has quite simply forgotten his paintbrush.143 The pose here is evocative, however, the mood being suggested as much through emphasis as through sharpness of line. The same is true of the elderly lady with the angular face shown gazing at herself in a narrow mirror, another example from this series. Her gaunt torso with its drooping breasts is upright, and her bony hands are crossed. Her expression is encapsulated in her words: “Such regrets.”144 In each case, the lines accentuate the main gestures and the focus

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is on the dynamics of the posture or profile. This is a key characteristic: the main preoccupation was now with the human form and line. Although the meaning of the word silhouette had expanded, the principle of shaping bodily contours, with all their linear characteristics and unique details, remained paramount. Less conspicuously, a “pre-sociological” perspective was establishing itself through this distinctive aim. Based on what post-revolutionary sensibilities perceived as an intermingling of social groups, its objective was to reproduce, through silhouetted images, what the Musée Philipon termed “physical specimens.”145

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A W ord E x pands : P h y sica l and Mora l S i g nificance

THE SILHOUETTE: A SOCIAL “MUSEUM” IN THE 19TH CENTURY

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Frontispiece for Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. I, Paris, 1841. Les Français peints par eux-mêmes is a monumental, nine-volume work that was published by Furne from 1841–1842. Its aim was to portray the French in all their social and physical diversity, presenting all the transformations in appearance and attitudes brought about by the rise of the bourgeoisie. The prints display endless varieties of category and status, from the concierge to the “redoubtable female;” from the minister to the clerk; from the pen-pusher to the shopkeeper. They are arranged in the manner of a natural history museum with a view to reproducing each individual profile. Everything had changed, as differences and unique features now became the focus of curiosity.

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his highly specific, renewed interest in physical types and morphology occurring in the early 19th century is rooted in a very particular set of circumstances. These explain how the word “silhouette,” in its widest interpretation, rose to dominance. They surely include the new printmaking processes, which brought about continual improvements in definition of line. The press, too, constantly required more clearly defined profiles. Yet a more complex requirement undoubtedly played a major role in these developments. This stemmed directly from issues relating to society itself, and necessitated the acute observation of each individual profile. It formed a response to the blurring of boundaries that the Revolution had introduced into the codes governing physical appearance. This was a sign of eradication, the end of an era “when every social class had, so to speak, its own uniform.”146 Travelers and observers during the 1820s and 1830s described their sudden confrontation with a more ambiguous world. This was heightened by the fact that “progress” emphasized mobility, and even actual upheaval: “In Paris, everything is changing, everything is transforming, everything is happening…”147 The old boundaries were being obliterated, and “castes” would become a thing of the past. Once the society based on a system of orders had been abolished, an increasing number of similarities developed. As Balzac put it: “in our society, differences have disappeared; there are only nuances left.”148 This state of affairs called for another type of perceptive curiosity, especially since differences did remain, albeit more subtle: “not all legs are destined to wear boots and trousers in the same way.”149 Hence, the call for a more “rigorous” approach to “looking,” the need to record more precisely, to distinguish different appearances, to identify features, to attempt classifications. This is reflected in the periodicals published during the Restoration and the July Monarchy. For instance, the initial illustration for La Silhouette, journal artistique et littéraire, which appeared in 1840,150 shows a court jester surrounded by a motley crowd to whom he is distributing drawings depicting a variety of different appearances and postures, which are likewise entitled “silhouettes.” The review claimed to offer an inventory of all the “physical” types in society. This was also demonstrated by a new genre of editorial ventures, such as Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes,151 Les Français peints par eux-mêmes,152 Les Enfants peints par eux-mêmes,153 Le Muséum parisien,154 and so on, all of which offered a

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Frontispiece for Gavarni’s Œuvres choisies, Paris, 1845. Gavarni’s aim, like that of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, was to portray the characters of his time. It was symbolized by the entrance to his studio, where portraits were arranged in the form of an arch, as if to lend them a stately air.

panorama of social types. Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine remains the supreme example of this aspiration.155 These investigations were not informed by a scholarly, sociological approach, but were based instead on subjective observation. There is also no sense of an overview. But there is an improvement in the way physical forms are depicted, in their linearity and their possible originality.156 Never had the connection between printed image and text appeared so relevant as in these cases. Never before had images been intended to

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A S ocia l “ Museu m ” in t h e 1 9 t h C entur y

Honoré de Balzac, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, III, “La dernière incarnation de Vautrin,” in Œuvres Complètes, Houssiaux, Paris, 1855, print by Bertall. La Comédie humaine presents an incomparable gallery of social types. Balzac’s avowed aim was to portray “the two or three thousand major figures of an era” or, more generally, “man’s appearance and physiognomy.” The prints were intended to depict their profiles. This image by Bertall illustrates one example: the proud lineage of the Comte de Lupeaux in “Vautrin’s Final Incarnation” is reflected in the thrust of his chin and his puffed-out chest; this forms an almost caricatural contrast with the bent figure of Corentin, a “sickly little old man.”

contribute so much additional information to that of words. Les Français peints par eux-mêmes describes a huge number of character types, their circumstances and their appearance, all accompanied by prints portraying the subjects. This study of “physiologies”157 was an entirely novel approach, and was integrated here into the analysis of a “social” being, as a range of professions, social positions, habits, and activities were presented in a series of separate physical profiles. Individuals from every possible walk of life were portrayed: from the student to the traveler, from the clerk to the bourgeois

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or the person of private means, from the bachelor to the soldier, from the mistress to the married woman. This richly descriptive artistic initiative demonstrated the aim of comparing a variety of expressions, both collective and individual. It is also evident in Paul Gavarni’s work, with its extreme differentiation between characters, types, and situations. The frontispiece of his Œuvres choisies (selected works) features a symbolic print: the artist is seen from the back, duly outlined, and is depicted in the act of making a new illustration, while completed silhouettes and figures are arranged to form an arch around him at the entrance to his studio. This creates a type of triumphal portal leading to his own work.158 In this way, silhouettes could be used to explore a new world, displaying its many and varied forms. The commentaries confirm this shift in curiosity: “We do not have the same skulls as the Greeks, nor the same arms, chests or feet … We should therefore be portrayed with narrow shoulders, constricted chests, long legs and large heads, for that is our physique.”159 This also explains Balzac’s intention to provide “profiles”160 of his characters. In Scènes de la vie parisienne, for instance, the banker Nucingen is described as “a man square-shaped in base and height … ,”161 “cubic,” and even “heavy as a sack.”162 Maître Mathias, the lawyer in Le Contrat de mariage, is heavy but less thickset, with “skinny little thighs […] seemingly bending under the weight of a round stomach.”163 Balzac uses the same terms as illustrators or engravers, even deliberately adopting expressions originating directly from artists’ studios.164 The emphasis was invariably on “the appearance of man and his physiognomy,”165 the principal aim being to create a whole panorama of physical profiles. This was very different from the old traditional scenario, with its harmonious orchestration of gestures and habits; the new approach, in contrast, deliberately highlighted scars, curvatures, and distinctive bodily contours.

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A S ocia l “ Museu m ” in t h e 1 9 t h C entur y

THE “INVENTION” OF MORPHOLOGY

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he aim in creating such profiles may in theory appear somewhat unoriginal, simply extending the approach adopted by silhouette artists at the beginning of the 19th century, with their increased emphasis on the differences between the silhouettes themselves. Now, however, one effect dominated: diversity. This is suggested in Les Petits albums pour rire of 1854, with its sketches of naked conscripts. Their anatomies vary widely in form, from tall to short, from thin to fat, from handsome to ill-favored. All must submit to the measuring-rod, which is adapted to each individual.166 This variety is also suggested by Grandville in one of his satirical prints, which shows Noah’s ark receiving every species in the animal kingdom. They all appear oddly human in form, revealing the obvious dissimilarities between them.167 The theme of physical difference and of morphological diversity was well and truly established. However, the illustrators who adopted the term “silhouette” in the years from 1820 to 1840 were engaged in a more complex project. The aim was to classify, an aspiration mirrored by the description of the new social “museum:” “Nature has its types. Society has its types. Every nation has its types,”168 maintained the editors of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes and the authors of Physiologies. Their predilection for categorizing social spaces is evident from these texts and images with their portrayals of human behavior. The Physiologie du voyageur, for example, grouped tourists into more than ten separate categories, from the “academic” to the “pleasure seeker,” and from the “artist” to the “hunter.”169 Strolling accounted for over six categories in the Physiologie du flâneur, from the “dawdler” to the “gawker,” from the “soldier” to the “loafer.”170 The world of “employees” contained numerous subdivisions, from the supernumerary worker to the cashier, from the tax collector to the bookkeeper or the clerk.171 This may well form a subjective inventory, more rhetorical than realist, and reflecting intention rather than proven fact, but the act of classifying is the primary concern here. And the new portrayals were intended to result in further classification. There are instances when the desire to reduce to a system borders on irony, with the illustrator deliberately altering physical appearance. In these cases, drawings of anatomies seem to have been subjected to the prism of a distorting mirror in the interests of “classifying” the most commonplace

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differences. Hence the semi-experimentation with form, which sees “tall” individuals becoming long and spindly, while “fat” characters are depicted as shapeless in Grandville’s172 Un autre monde, or in the highly calculated lithographs by Charles Motte.173 The quest centered on a systematic approach to linear depiction itself. Another type of alteration, more suggestive in nature, was the result of an illustrator translating a behavioral trait into an anatomical feature, accentuating it to an extreme degree. Examples of these include the curved figures of the “convex” and “concave” petitioners portrayed in the review Le Goût du jour in 1817,174 or the yet more exaggerated image of the “minister’s dog,” the ‘factotum’ ready to undertake any task to “satisfy his notions of grandeur,”175 which appeared in the Muséum parisien in 1841. These linear explorations produced strikingly creative results. The petitioners’ “re-shaped” bodies are transformed into “single,” very simple forms, which become “categories” in themselves. The arcs are stretched outwards or inwards, just one line being sufficient to suggest power or submission. This embodies the very essence of the

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above left

Jean-Jacques Grandville, “Les grands et les petits,” in Un autre monde, Paris, 1844. above right

Jean-Jacques Grandville, “La conservation des races,” in Un autre monde, Paris, 1844. Jean-Jacques Grandville was one of the early 19th-century artists who took a systematic approach to explorations of bodily types, either by exaggerating dissimilarities in size to an extreme degree (as with “the tall and the short”), or by exaggerating differences in form in the same manner (as with “the conservation of the species,” all of which are different). The latter example is directly concerned with the theme of morphology. Bodily forms are presented here with their infinite variations, a major aspect of this type of research, which silhouette artists had been among the first to explore.

T h e “ I n v ention ” of Morp h o l o g y

above left

The Concave Petitioner: The Taste of the Day no 33, Paris, 1817. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. above right

The Convex Petitioner: The Taste of the Day no 34, Paris, 1817. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early 19th-century prints contributed to the creation of a social “album.” In this context, the exploration of society’s many and varied collective forms led to further exploration of physical postures. These were often exaggerated to their supposedly most extreme extent.

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silhouette: a unique, decisive curved line intended to convey the individuality of a human form. A more specific task remained. This involved the parts of the body itself, the upper and lower sections, the form and location of its curves, and entailed a greater degree of classification. Between 1817 and 1830, the Musée grotesque featured numerous prints exploring such differences. Notable examples include illustrations of characters from the salons, distinguished by their extended bodies balanced on short legs, or by their long legs supporting shortened torsos.176 These structural disparities are clearly sketched and precisely situated. Social curiosity now had free rein, liberated once and for all from the classical vision of harmonious and balanced “portraitures”177 described in so many treatises on painting, and which could only be reproduced with a precise knowledge of “geometry.”178 The gaze was freer than ever, as artists deliberately sought out the diverse and the surprising, systematizing opposing characteristics and unexpected elements,

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together with their possible categories. Daumier went further than many in clearly designating these localized physical differences. Robert Macaire, the emblematic character from the “Caricaturana” in Charivari between 1836 and 1838,179 represents an entire “type” in himself. Suggesting a form of false social poise, a superficial temperament and a mean spirit, he is portrayed with a receding neck, a constricted chest, and thin legs. As well as illustrating a standard character, Robert Macaire is also contrasted with others, notably illustrated by the fact that some of the people he encounters display the same features in reverse form.180 The very same principle is applied in a number of group scenes where the respective heights of each part of the body vary from one individual to another.181 The object of the enterprise was therefore clear-cut: to create a system categorizing varied examples of physical disproportion. These were no longer restricted to contrasts between the large and the small, the thin and fat, but now included irregularities in the contours or parts of the body, or in the size of a specific feature, as well as examples of disparity in symmetry or the joints. Bodies were no longer simply presented as discrete entities, as with silhouette portraits, but were now divided into “genres,” with proportions that could virtually be individually categorized and contrasted. Objects themselves were even sometimes “anthropomorphized” in order to illustrate these possible categories with greater clarity. A case in point is the image of household objects made by Nadar in the Petits Albums pour rire in 1854, showing a shovel and fire tongs, metamorphosed into human form, “leaving on a journey.” The shovel has a wide head, an elongated body, and short legs, while the tong’s head is minute, his body tiny, and his legs immoderately long.182 These implements, now transformed into “travelers,” have been “reduced” to the most basic aspects of their physical forms, which also serve to differentiate them: for these reasons, they may certainly be classed as silhouettes. Grandville adopted the very same principle when he brought similar instruments to life. He depicted the same items, which display the same disproportions and also included a bellows portrayed as a character, whose torso is formed by the air bag.183 In further examples, there are illustrations of a tub and washboard, which challenge morphological norms, as do those depicting citrus fruits, umbrellas, tables, and other items of furniture.184 The animated objects in these images present curious and varied proportions. They reveal the illustrator’s focus on new approaches to portraying his subjects, as he explored the possible positioning and varied lengths of limbs. Not content with suggesting, he aimed to establish systems.

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Charles Motte, “Les visites,” in Musée grotesque, no 21, Paris, 1817–1830. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

T h e “ I n v ention ” of Morp h o l o g y

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left

Jean-Jacques Grandville, “La meilleure forme,” in Un autre monde, Paris, 1844.

These examples of diversity were no longer dispersed, as they may have been in former times, but were now ordered and categorized. Illustrators aspired to convey the physical diversity, seen on a daily basis, which academism sought to ignore and which a new spirit of curiosity sought to emphasize. There is clearly a detailed context to these curious images. They originated from the aim of individualizing profile portraits through the black shadow technique, as well as the desire to explore social issues through the Physiologies, and the development of printed illustrations in the press. All these factors brought about a further transformation to the art of “visualizing” the body in the first half of the 19th century. Such images “revealed” an aspect of bodily proportions that had always existed, but had never previously been noted or objectivized: the possibility of categorizing the variety of interconnections between different parts of the body. A multitude of dissimilarities now appeared, with images of arms, legs, chests, shoulders, and heads displaying huge variations in their respective correlations. They also explored “systems,” establishing instances of apparent “disharmony,” which could be classified and formed into series. It was becoming increasingly evident that an entirely new physical world was emerging.

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opposite

Honoré Daumier, “Je ne sais pas ce qu’on peut trouver d’amusant à toutes ces bêtises-là” (“I don’t know what’s so entertaining about all those silly things”), plate n° 64 in the “Caricaturana” series, 1837. Paris, BnF, Prints Department. Honoré Daumier pursued the study of bodily structures in his color plates depicting differences in the lengths of legs and torsos, and in the contours of the stomach, neck, and back. Physical diversity became an object of exploration through image.

T h e “ I n v ention ” of Morp h o l o g y

Nadar, “La pelle et la pincette se disposent à partir pour la Russie” (“The shovel and tongs about to set off for Russia”), in Les Petits Albums pour rire, no 1, 1854. The anthropomorphic transformation of household items created a comic effect for the wider public, which already included the working class in the mid-19th century. This approach was accompanied by a more specific aim, as these implements and their respective sizes were also a means of displaying varied morphological types. The silhouette established and re-invented itself through this diversity.

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The contours of the body, as well as its respective proportions, were also the subject of more systematic study. This included its upper and lower sections, with their alternating or contrasting elements. One example is the specific emphasis given to the chest, particularly in the case of the Romantic dandy, whose profile accentuates his puffed-out upper torso and minimized stomach. A particular “outline” was established, and was used to portray the notions of power, and of genuine or false domination. The illustrators of the 1830s exploited its potential to the utmost, depicting protruding chests and pulled-in waists to create identifiable and pared-down silhouettes. Balzac’s Georges Grandet and Eugène Sue’s Christophe are notable examples of this phenomenon, with their prominent upper bodies and their nipped-in frock coats, as are soldiers and artists’ or tailors’ models.185 The portrait of Desdéban by Ingres in the museum at Besançon is another case in point; here, the pedestal-style bust is highlighted by the distinctive triangular shaped opening of his coat.186 All reflect a revised “morphological” perspective, as the significance of the chest area changed in the early 19th century. The respiratory system had reemerged in a different light as a result of Lavoisier’s physiological discoveries. Oxygen was now understood as the foundation of existence, which created dramatic alterations in the presentation of the human form.187 The gaze was redirected to the area around the lungs. Men’s and women’s chests were seen to strain under their waistcoats and bodices. Fashions even accentuated this development with increased amounts of padding. A new profile was created: an upright figure with a protuberant upper section, its lines simplified and instantly visible. In the words of a tailor: “French-style frock coats form a wide, convex chest.”188 The contours were reversed, however, in the case of discreditable profiles, which depicted subjects with drooping figures, or those “broad” individuals whose bulk precluded vigorous activity. Examples of these were clearly “profiled,” even giving rise to a new form. This comprised a now thinnerlooking chest atop an enlarged stomach, in direct opposition to the silhouette favored by the fashions of the day. The notion of “fat” was no longer confined to the portrayal of a rounded body, in the long-standing tradition of illustration. There were now images of the “gastrophile,”189 a new category described by scholars, whose stomach alone protrudes. The body of this individual swells out in a very specific area, overhanging from the waist downwards, the lower section being “hyperbolic”190 in form, while the upper section is reduced in size. Brillat-Savarin gave the initial description of this occurrence in his Physiologie du goût in 1825. It was first portrayed by Daumier in La Caricature in the very early 1830s. The “physiology” of the phenomenon was explained in 1832 by Sébastien Peytel, who designated it as the “pear.” Depicted in hundreds of ways, and the object of endless studies, the pear was the new shape used to represent men whose “obesity was

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confined to their stomach.”191 It also served as a caricature intended to ridicule the acquisitive bourgeoisie, greedy individuals with private incomes, and all those whose expanding girth was the result of “uncontrolled” abundance. It was likewise a means of criticizing King Louis-Philippe, the symbolic representative of these “gluttonous, obsequious people.”192 The origins of this caricature193 have been comprehensively discussed. Based on the image of a head in the form of a pear, with a narrow crown and pendulous, inflated jaws, its conical form extends downwards to the body. The inflexible king is portrayed in countless similar drawings illustrating his power, which was as excessive as it was misused. The censorship law of 1835

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Louis Philippe and another character as pears, “Quelles drôles de têtes!” (“What funny heads!”), in La Caricature, 1830, lithograph. The dandy’s rounded chest seems to echo the sagging stomach of the bourgeois. Features are inverted here, while the general process of simplification is still applied. The “pear” is another aspect of the silhouette image that appeared during the first half of the 19th century.

T h e “ I n v ention ” of Morp h o l o g y

Gavarni. “Ma chère, comment peux-tu supporter un homme qui…?” (“My dear, how can you bear a man who…?”), in Les Étudiants de Paris, Œuvres choisies, Paris 1846. The word “cambrure,” a curve or arch, first appeared in the period from 1820–1830. It defined a new way for women to display the curvature of their hips and back. The contours of the clothed figure followed the line of the body more closely, facilitating its portrayal in silhouette form.

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and the banning of this image have likewise been extensively examined, together with the variations produced by their creators in order to maintain its presence and impact, and above all its emergence as a commonplace motif in literature and public perception.194 The theme relates just as closely to Balzac’s characters, the best example of which is provided by the illustrious Gaudissart, the “potbellied” traveling salesman, with his “protuberant, pearshaped stomach.”195 Criticism of the bourgeoisie took on unprecedented significance. Now, however, the introduction of an innovative line was established as its central feature: a new profile was created, together with an entirely original way of depicting it. This attested to a new type of observation, acute and highly specific, that emerged in the early decades of the 19th century. It generated a type of portrayal that reflected a dramatic change in the way bodies were viewed, and included social, physical, cultural, and morphological factors. This, in particular, explains the relevance of the silhouette as a theme: a figure pared down to its essential outlines, it may vary in aspect and type and still be easily definable and identifiable. This is demonstrated with greater clarity than ever before by the contrasting outlines of the conquering dandy and the potbellied bourgeois. There was no longer a straightforward distinction between thin and fat, but between alternating bends in the contours, between a bulging chest contrasted with a bulging stomach. Lines curved, enriched with meaning. Features differed in nuance and gained in expressivity, generating new terms and categories. The word “cambrure” (an “arch” or “curve”), which appeared for the first time in France during this period, provides further confirmation of these innovations. Women drawn by Daumier or Gavarni and depicted in La Grande Ville or the Tableaux de Paris display a suppleness of the spine in their movements, arching their waists to indicate a tension born of elegance and fragility. The shawls that envelop them cling closely to their flexible, curving forms, accentuating their contours. Following the line of the body itself, this curvature is intended to make it appear more slender and seductive.196 This became a widespread morphological theme, and was described as such, having its own mechanics and its own terminology. It was used, for example, to enhance the profile of La Fille aux yeux d’or: “a curvaceous waist, the slim waist of a corvette built for the chase...”197 It “redeems” the profile of the Fille d’Ève: “She was of medium height, and, despite an imminent threat of stoutness, her figure was still shapely and well-made.”198 This curvaceous feature, moreover, added to the charm of female partners when dancing the newly introduced waltz.199 Now, for the first time, men and women were in close physical contact as they danced: “As she moved, my arm encircled her well-rounded, shapely waist.”200 The “physiognomy of the waist”201 was characterized by this curvaceous quality, according to an early 19th century fashion periodical. It lends an attractive,

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even “erotic” quality to Gavarni’s image of two slender female silhouettes in a Parisian theater, outlined against the light; here, the slenderness and accentuated curve of the waists form the chief focus of the illustration.202 It also brings to life Gagniet’s delicately drawn profile of the schoolmistress in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes.203 Such figures draw the gaze of men watching women as they walk along the boulevards in prints by Daumier.204 For the first time, the contours of the anatomy were visible through clothing: the new image that emerged suggested obscurity and concealment. This delicate profile, the curve of the back deliberately accentuated and outlined against the light, carried very subtle erotic undertones. Male profiles, too, were differentiated by a variety of nuances, their backs were straight and slim or curved, their hip area defined or minimized. A considerable number of diverse bodily features were also explored for the first time in illustrations published during the Restoration and the July Monarchy. They were specifically depicted by Daumier in a series of profiles of politicians, which appeared in Le Charivari during the 1840s. From the member of parliament Molé, with his curiously arched back, and Parrieu with his supple, curved contours, to the straighter form of Jean-Denis Lanjuinais, these images present a range of possible variations, all of which were both emphasized and analyzed.205 The same diversity was also explored by Grandville in Les Métamorphoses du jour, where most of the figures portrayed are differentiated by variations in the curvature of the back.206 The silhouette was individualized through a set of precisely located morphological features.

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T h e “ I n v ention ” of Morp h o l o g y

THE SILHOUETTE: A N AC A DE M IC A PPROAC H

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he specific study of differences in bodily forms clearly engaged the attention of illustrators during these early decades of the 19th century. There was evidently a social aspect to this new, incisive observation, as similarities that might not have been visible at first sight were revealed.207 Newspaper circulation also played a part in the portrayal of these subjects, which heightened the impact of the illustrated press.208 The theme of the silhouette was now both legitimized and formalized. Academics could not remain dissociated from such innovations. Manifesting an unprecedented and far-reaching new awareness, physiologists, orthopedists, and doctors all gave renewed attention to these subjects. From the beginning of the 19th century, physiologists had been the first to develop the marked interest in postures manifested in Enlightenment culture, with the study of the erect position, its opposing forces, and its “internal” mechanisms. Indeed, Anthelme Richerand pioneered the use of the term “station” (“stance”) to define upright posture and its complex dynamics. He devoted a lengthy chapter of his Nouveaux éléments de physiologie of 1802209 to this subject. Emphasizing the renewed importance of the theme, he detailed, point by point, the weight and propulsive function of the head, the curvature of the vertebrae and their role in supporting the body, as well as pelvic obliquity and its importance in maintaining equilibrium. Each part “once fixed, provides a basis of support for the muscles, which join it to the next.”210 The joints counterbalance one another, “sequences” are created and forces connect, so that “everything contributes”211 to the composition of the whole. One “single vertical line,”212 in other words, is formed and established. A new sphere of preoccupation had emerged within the fields of medicine and physiology. The portrayal of postures was redefined to become an image of tension between forces that could be translated into silhouette form. Advocates of hygienic reform also sought to redefine personality types, placing greater emphasis on physical appearance. For example, in the early 19th century Jean Noël Hallé made distinctions between “lymphatic,” “nervous,” and “athletic” temperaments, taking inspiration from the principal “functions” of the human body first distinguished by late 18th-century physiologists. Attention was focused on bodily contours, specifically on the shapes created as a result of the function deemed dominant in each individual.

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No numerical measurements or geometric formulae were involved, but there was an unprecedented wealth of descriptive detail. The lymphatic type, for example, was characterized by “roundness” and “flexibility,” while the nervous individual’s traits included “abruptness” and “elegance.” The athletic type was described in abundant detail, having “a thick, strong neck, especially at the back, square shoulders, a wide, rounded chest, very pronounced dorsal and lumbar muscles, wide hips and powerful limbs, with the attachments and interstices of the muscles being strongly delineated.”213 In this way, specific types of bodily contour were established; although undoubtedly simple in concept, they were linked to the body’s internal functioning and clearly defined. During the 1820s and 1830s, orthopedists led the way in naming and distinguishing localized or “excessive” curving of the spinal column. Their new terminology directed the attention to conditions such as “scoliosis” and its lateral “deviations,” “kyphosis,” with its convex over-curvature, and “lordosis,” the excessive forward tilting of the pelvis. The same orthopedists were the first to focus on each muscle likely to cause deformity as a result of strain. Their methods involved viewing examples of curvature, calculating the degree of their deviations and planning remedial procedures. They even invented instruments to improve the efficacy of their corrective measures. These included trolleys angled in a variety of different ways, together with handles and pulleys oriented in various directions, all designed to stimulate muscles and movement. All these devices helped patients to perform specific corrective exercises.214 Posture was no longer seen as a passive state, but as an active feature. Bodily contours became a focus for endeavor. From then on the silhouette, too, was entrusted to the care of “experts.”

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above left

Charles Gabriel Pravaz, “Undulating exercise chariot,” in Mémoire sur la réalité de l’art orthopédique, 1845. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale. above right

Jacques Mathieu Delpech, device for playing the piano, in De l’orthomorphie par rapport à l’espèce humaine, Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale. During the years from 1820–1830, a number of scholarly texts, practices, and even medical institutions, devoted unprecedented attention to the correction of spinal deviations. Bodily structure was viewed in a different light, further facilitating its depiction in the form of silhouettes.

T h e S i l h ouette : A n A cade m ic A pproac h

Jean-Jacques Grandville, “Soyez sans inquietude…” (“Have no fears…”), in Les Métamorphoses du jour, Paris, 1829. The caricaturist is making an ironic comment on the new vogue for spinal correction. And yet, beyond the irony, the focus is on the silhouette.

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The notion of “correction” even led to the creation of a new type of orthopedic institution. There were doctors who devoted themselves to the subject and specifically adapted establishments, where it was claimed that previously neglected conditions could be cured. “Doctors have not hitherto given much attention to the problem of deformations in body shape,”215 declared the founder of one of these “orthopedic programs.” These developments expanded, with prospectuses from such institutions targeting all the major cities from the 1820s onwards. There was even a specialist journal, which was founded in 1828.216 These practices, their participants, and establishments inevitably came to the notice of caricaturists, including Grandville in Les Métamorphoses du jour: “Have no fears, Monsieur, after two months of treatment I will send your son back to you as upright as you or I.”217

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T H E S I L H O U E T T E A N D FA S H I O N IN THE ROMANTIC ERA

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uring the decade from the 1820s to the 1830s, tailors, too, adopted a device invented to measure variations in the curvature of the torso, to enable them to improve the fit of their frock coats and 218 jackets. They presented images of models complete with “measuring” instruments. These standardized rods were connected together and used to calculate the specific degree of curvature of the shoulders, back, and neck to ensure that garments were perfectly molded to each subject’s form. Varied anatomical shapes now provided guidelines. Tailors based their work more closely than ever on the bone structure and contours of the limbs. From image to reality, and from illustrations to descriptions, the theme of the silhouette was becoming increasingly relevant in a growing number of spheres. For its part, fashion also defined the “ideal” silhouettes of the 1830s, albeit circumspectly. Men’s garments emphasized wellrounded chests and narrow middles,219 while women’s styles were characterized by tapered corsets, full skirts, and “wasp waists.”220 The silhouette was no longer simply the visually striking result of an artistic procedure; it now played a role in “outlining” the ideal shape required by fashion. The very notion of outline, however, remained different for the male and female “models.” In the former case, the figure was completely re-invented, a process that even involved redefining the contours of the body, now characterized by a disproportionately wide chest and smaller stomach. Tailors applied a greater number of geometrical lines to this area, all demarcating the attachments of the limbs. The outline followed the contours of the physique. In the case of women, however, the prevailing model differed markedly from anatomical reality. Skirts were exaggeratedly puffed and shoulders made to appear wider, with ribbons and folds featuring in abundance. The early 19th-century female silhouette, with its emphasis on voluminous forms, continued to reflect fixed notions. Women remained associated with artifice and decoration; their appearance was established by the materials they wore, while that of men was characterized by their physical form and the contours of their limbs.

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F. A. Barde, Traité encyclopédique de l’art du tailleur, 1834, Paris, BnF. During the 1820s, tailors tried for the first time to measure differences in the angle of inclination presented by various torsos in order to improve the fit and construction of their garments. The new practice of outlining the contours in the manner of a silhouette formed part of this numerical approach.

“Accentuated” technology: a woman being tightly laced into her corset, ca. 1830. London, Science Museum. This satirical depiction of the increasingly tight corset coincides with the mockery of measures to correct the spine. In each case, the silhouette is the focus of attention.

However, a change was beginning to occur with regard to the portrayal of the female figure itself. There was a new emphasis on the suggestion of what lay beneath the clothing. The “quivering”221 of their dresses animates the steps of Balzac’s female characters. Those depicted in the periodical La Silhouette are similarly brought to life through their “swaying”222 motion as they walk. A woman, like Baudelaire’s “passerby,” should know how to “lift and swing her flounces and her hem.”223 The hidden form must reveal itself, however surreptitiously, contrasting the “supple, flowing quality”224 of Parisian dresses with the “limp”225 lifelessness of provincial garments. The undulating movements accentuate the sense of a “concealed” form. Daumier’s depictions of women walking on the beach emphasize the billowing of their fringed dresses.226 Gavarni created numerous images of women swaying as they walk; the edges of their dresses are turned to one side, accentuating the tilting motion of their steps. A subtle play involving hidden elements is evident in Gavarni’s version of a woman “making eyes”227 at a man, increasing the impact of the line. The silhouette inevitably gained through this as yet limited interpretation of the “hidden” form. It already suggests a new fashion by emphasizing anatomical contours.

Gavarni, “Quand je vous disais que votre Agathe faisait des yeux à mon chenapan…” (“I told you that your Agathe was making eyes at my young rascal…”), in La Vie de jeune homme, Œuvres choisies, Paris, 1845. There is a discreetly erotic suggestion in the swaying skirt and the slight twist to the body: for the first time, the movement itself suggested the “hidden” form beneath. The focus on bodily outline also introduced new dynamics.

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A W E A LT H O F C R E AT I V I T Y IN GRAPHIC ART

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hese innovations that occurred during the first decades of the 19th century were momentous in more than one respect. They accompanied this change in perception, involving frequent reappraisals of the treatment of line. The increasing prominence accorded to images in the illustrated press, the emphasis on simplified scenes— cleared of all but the most expressive elements—and the extremely limited surface area presented by the vignettes all created constraints leading to a preference for lines that combined general portrayal with concentrated expressivity. The black contour was the sole dominant feature here, as the focus of an emphatically linear approach. The new images contained fewer characters, who were depicted in more geometric a style and with simplified gestures. As these choices were certainly even more favorable to “silhouetted” compositions, this graphic style was adopted. The simplified appearance of these figures introduced a new vigor of expression. Some drawings even featured matching “twinned” characters, creating a deliberately unusual effect. These changes were associated with genuinely innovative graphic techniques. This simplification of line led to an almost choreographic approach. Features mirrored one another, connecting and forming patterns, displaying an ever-increasing number of ordered modifications. An initial example of these processes is the “triangulated” image, characterized by a total predominance of linearity. The depiction of two individuals, their heads moving closer together while their bodies remain at a distance, creates a variety of possible scenarios of an almost coded nature. This example may take multiple forms: an intense discussion or obvious aggression between two individuals, a stance indicating astonishment, or even faces drawing near in an affectionate gesture. The actions are unquestionably different, but the model remains the same: through this modification of their form, characters are profiled as well as simplified. Examples of this include the noisy confrontation of the quarrelsome females in the Musée Philipon,228 the wild embraces depicted by Daumier,229 or Cham’s images of complicit agreements in the

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Hippolyte Taine, Voyage aux Pyrénées, Paris, 1858, “Les Eaux Bonnes,” print by Gustave Doré. A silhouette-style portrayal resulted in largely unprecedented illustrations displaying a new geometrical approach to bodies and their interrelations.

“Les brancardiers” (“The Stretcher-Bearers”), in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, Paris, 1842–1843. The extreme concision of the lines here has created a highly inventive geometric visual effect.

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Assemblée nationale comique, reduced to strongly geometricized leaning forms.230 Bodies are “stylized” in these scenes and episodes, emphasizing those expressions of each gesture, which require vivid portrayal. Unsurprisingly, these types of image could be rearranged according to almost identical formulae, enhancing the linearity of the figures, or emphasizing the geometric form of the whole configuration. There are instances where bodies appear linked in movement, with one character leaning markedly forwards while another stands bolt upright, both accentuating the right angle. The image indicates abasement on the one hand, and resistance or domination on the other. Examples of this are the prints that specifically present two opposing attitudes, such as Grandville’s “bassesse et orgueil”231 in Les Métamorphoses du jour, contrasting the lowly with the lofty. A further practice involving simplification of line was that of exaggerating a gesture in order to increase the intensity of its impact. Examples include the violent blow causing legs or arms to be unnaturally elongated,232 the rapid running motion that transforms the legs into a compass,233 or the extensive force under which the body bends to the ground.234 Rodolphe Töpffer’s characters are the prime examples of this simplified geometric approach, with their standardized, silhouetted figures and expressive, animated scenarios.235 It was this very same new approach to portrayal that established the relevance of the silhouette: thanks to its easily repeatable shape, it lent itself freely to a series of episodes presented in pictorial form. Silhouettes were equally suited to a different type of procedure. In this instance, a group of figures are depicted in the same position, or even making

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identical movements, in order to heighten the intended effect. As if driven by the same mechanism, the characters mirror each other’s angles, leaning in the same direction and displaying matching contours. This technique puts unprecedented emphasis on portrayal through delineation. An illustration of this approach is Gustave Doré’s procession of heavily clothed mountain folk, piled together as they walk up a footpath in the Pyrenees.236 A similar example is that of the stretcher-bearers in the Musée Philipon; walking at the same angle, their identically paced strides indicate their urgent haste.237 Daumier’s passersby, too, are shown braving the windy Parisian streets bent double in the same manner.238 Scenes of this type, abrupt and succinct in expression, lead directly to the portrayal of subjects in silhouette form. The emergence of the illustrated press, together with the systematized approach to scenes from daily life as depicted in prints or lithographs, generated an increase in new graphic styles during the first half of the 19th century. This was a decisive phenomenon. A complete change occurred in the way bodies were both portrayed and evaluated. Different criteria were adopted in relation to physical form. Perception was radically altered, as “line” was now predominant.

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“À l’aspect du prince Madame d’Harville rougit” (“Madame d’Harville blushed at the prince’s appearance”), in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, Paris, 1842–1843.

A W ea l t h of C reati v it y in Grap h ic A rt

FROM THE PRESS TO THE POSTER

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Henri Gerbault, “J’en ai assez du métier de lutteur…” (“I’ve had enough of wrestling for a living…”), in Les Maîtres humoristes, Henri Gerbault, vol. II, Paris, 1905. From the mid-19th century, the circulation and speedier publication of newspapers, together with their condensed information, all led to a “pared-down” approach to images. Backgrounds were obliterated or simplified. Only the lines indicating bodily forms and postures remained, as the rapidly sketched silhouette dominated the scene.

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t is important to emphasize the increasing number of transformations that took place in the press during the 19th century. The advent of illustrations in the daily papers and the growing aspiration to echo the fleeting nature of constantly changing events imposed certain constraints.239 Inevitable consequences followed. A process of simplification was now more markedly predominant than in any other period. This was reflected in newspapers at the end of the 19th century, with their ever-increasing emphasis on a hastily executed style. Illustrators working for the press— Forain, Steinlen, Bac, Gerbault, and Henriot—displayed a radical approach to brevity and forceful outlines. They favored striking effects and rapid interpretation. Their focus was on impact, as they directed the way in which the body was presented. All this inevitably involved an abbreviation of line in order to intensify the emphasis on the contours of the silhouette. A genre was established: “Line was simplified, the setting was minimal, characters were larger, there was more space, more air around them.”240 Within this framework, the deliberately pared-down aspect of the outline even altered the culture of perception. The image had to be electrifying. Indeed, it should produce the effect of a “gunshot” in the words of Forain, who claimed his work was designed for a reader with no more than “three seconds”241 to spare. The challenge intensified: how to express the “most” through the “least,” maximizing the effect using the minimum of means and providing the most comprehensive information in a single instant. This explains the “economy of means, both graphic and verbal,” and the abbreviated style adopted in order to “hit the target”242 more forcefully and highlight the message. It also explains the more systematic presentation of subjects, which are reduced to a few lines. In Gerbault’s drawings, for instance, the setting is even treated in an abstract manner, in order to highlight individual outlines and direct the gaze. An example of this is the illustration of 1905, featuring the figures of a wrestler and an elegant female. The former speaks of wanting to leave “the profession” and doing “something else,” the latter, mocking the man’s substantial stomach, simply suggests that he should become a “wet nurse.”243 The joke is certainly feeble, but the drawing itself places unprecedented emphasis on contour alone, the refined curves of the lady and the rotund form of the wrestler. Indeed, the figures form the basis of the story, as the lines acquire an “anecdotal” quality, enhancing the female

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character and devaluing the male. A similar type of image, mocking women obsessed with shopping, appeared in 1902 in La Vie parisienne, the renowned “lifestyle” magazine of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.244 Viewed from behind, the outlined character is isolated from any context. Incisive, delicate and almost black, the lines stand out against a white background, but are extended to depict the ample boxes of new clothes carried on both her arms. The image here cultivates contrast: the cumbersome nature of the boxes is a dominant feature, and is presented in comparison with the dogged progress of the walking figure. The shopper’s cheerful spirits and determination, despite the crushing burden of her load, are all conveyed through line. From the swinging movement of her dress to the firmness of her tread, and from the width of the boxes to the slenderness of her form, it is line alone that communicates the meaning here: line alone was able to transform a force into reality. A particular style of presentation was now firmly established in the illustrated press. It involved “increasing effects” through a process of “subtraction,”245 minimizing the surface detail of an image in order to maximize its impact. This is revealed by a telling description of Forain’s daily working practices: the first phase involved exploring possibilities, the second was a process of simplification, and lastly, the artist made his final selection. An example of this approach is the street scene, where several experiments resulted in the pared-down depiction of two characters, the wind curving and shaping their forms as they stand on the Pont des Arts, seeming to question one another.246 This progressively more abstract effect is quite simply “expressionism by default:”247 “Once he had covered the floor around him with a jumble of papers, he would examine them dispassionately and

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Alfred Grévin, “Types de plage” (“Beach Types”), in Les Parisiennes, 1879. The principles acquired from silhouette drawings in the late 19th century inspired some illustrators to experiment with simplification of line.

F ro m t h e P ress to t h e P oster

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, lithograph for a poster, 1891. Paris, BnF. The poster became a major feature of the world of advertising during the late 19th century. It required simpler, plainer lines so that the focus was on expressive power. This art reached great heights with the posters of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

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then make his decision in an instant, choosing the best.”248 Through this practice of “simplifying” the image, the illustrator limited himself to the most distinct of outlines. Henri Gerbault’s illustrations in Paris, voici Paris in 1889 contain several portrayals of characters consisting solely of outlines set in a white background.249 Alfred Grévin’s illustration Types de plage featured In Les Parisiennes in 1879, presents simplified, toylike figures, seemingly made of folded paper.250 Caran d’Ache established himself as the specialist in creating these pared-down forms. Examples of these include the comparisons between the inhabitants of Asnières, Sceaux, and VilleneuveSaint-Georges in his “comedy of manners” of 1886, where the outlines alone stand out sharply against a white background.251 The methodical quest to produce an impact through image placed unparalleled emphasis on the use of contours. This innovation was complemented by another, equally original iconographic form. Posters, with their succinct formula and distinctly defined role as an advertising medium, took the simplification of appearances and features to extremes, particularly in the 19th century. The history of the poster is well known: its emergence in the mid-19th century, its techniques, its success as a mass-produced item, and its development252 have often been described. The transformation of the market, together with improvements in the printing process, helped to regularize large-scale circulation. Over seven million posters were published in Paris and in the department of the Seine in 1878, when the World Fair was held.253 Over a thousand of these were “painted.” An important feature of this pictorial form was its originality, as explicitly stated by its promoters: “The poster should firstly catch the attention, then secure it, and finally engage it.”254 It should also contain a limited number of characters and its drawings should have a pared-down, almost stylized, appearance: “The simpler it is, the more striking it will be: eloquent and therefore effective.”255 This marked the creation of a new genre, with a more extensive influence, which inevitably affected the way body profiles were perceived. The aim behind posters, more than with any other art form, was to achieve an impact, instantly arresting the gaze. The work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1890s offers the finest example of this approach. The new manner of presenting the human form found its most striking expression through his “haste to capture the fleeting moment,”256 his “nervously static”257 drawings and his characters, whose stylized depiction made words “all but redundant.” The silhouette was now predominant, as is evident with the image of May Milton dancing across a stage, her monochrome dress flaring from the waist, her nimble movements alone evoking all the attractions offered by the show.258 In the Divan Japonais, too, a female figure in a long, close-fitting black dress dominates the image, her elegance conveying the seductive and

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select nature of the venue.259 In another example, La Goulue is depicted twirling in the center of the image as she promotes the Moulin Rouge, while around her spectators stand like Chinese shadows, together with “Valentin le Désossé, sketched as a transparent silhouette.”260 Jean Adhémar sees in this poster “an originality never previously encountered.”261 The modern poster was born: each line used in the portrayal of these characters stood out prominently, accentuating their unique quality. In certain cases, the consistently functional nature of the line even resulted in a diagrammatic effect. This is evident with the early 20th century German poster advertising Novelta cigarettes.262 Two men, geometric in form, their chests swelling as they puff, are seen walking with a hurried gait, seemingly carried along by the cigarettes protruding from their faces. The “force” ascribed to tobacco and the haste of their steps are instantly conveyed through their outlines. The Italian poster for Mele clothing produces a similar impression. The man depicted wearing a coat made by the company appears to suggest an almost physical sensation of comfort through an imperceptible movement of his head and arm:263 one gesture, one outline, one meaning. The poster “encapsulates:” the subject is portrayed to produce the maximum impact, and highlighted through an emphasis on line. The shaded form was now reestablished, recalling the style of Romantic painters, with their images of darker figures outlined against a radiant cosmos in order to catch the eye. Characters are amplified through this technique of deliberate contrast. The role of the poster is to intensify effect using the minimum number of lines. Examples include images of motorists or cyclists standing out distinctively against a landscape, tourists gazing at locations to explore, and consumers exhibiting desired items. Although this was certainly an established formula, it was applied in a completely innovative manner. The shadowed figure was no longer dominated by its surroundings, as was the case with the Romantic model: now, conversely, the figure itself took center stage as the expression of an affirmation, depicting the “happiness” of an individual pleased with the advertised brand. For this reason, physical appearance and the portrayal of the human form assumed great significance. In Leonetto Cappiello’s264 posters, with their female figures delineated against an idyllic landscape or dominating images to vaunt the appeal of a well-known item, the important role of the bodily profile was conclusively established. In this way, the silhouette, named after the iconographic process itself, became an increasingly familiar image.

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Leonetto Cappiello, poster advertising Ducros Fils absinthe, 1901. Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Posters are based on the principle of achieving the maximum effect with the minimum of lines, providing a focal point for information with the sparing use of words. Leonetto Cappiello accomplished this aim by “silhouetting” his subjects. The body and its contours were likewise honed.

F ro m t h e P ress to t h e P oster

THE ART OF EXPRESSION

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FIGURES IN MOTION

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page 90 Étienne-Jules Marey, animated photographs for the analysis of movement, 1884. Bradford, National Media Museum. Étienne-Jules Marey was one of the pioneers of the analysis of bodily movement through photographs in the late 1870s. He had to “pare down” the body in order to study the movements as closely as possible. In this way, the silhouette in its modern incarnation was also promoted through photography.

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n the late 19th century, another process played an equal role in familiarizing society with the portrayal of the human figure: this was photography. Its significance lay in a new approach to the study of movement, rather than to the art of portraiture. The objective was clear: to reveal the numerous stages of one physical gesture by means of a rapid succession of images. There was a context to this process, suggesting a quasi-technical curiosity regarding the dynamics of an action and the resulting positions adopted by the body. The aim was to develop further knowledge of the details involved in movements, so that they could be better adapted to technological processes. Photography allowed these actions to be examined as closely as possible and, importantly, to be shot from complex angles. Batteries of cameras were used to follow the subject in motion, a system associated with Eadweard Muybridge in the United States.265 There were also cameras that produced multiple instant photographs, as used by Étienne-Jules Marey in France.266 This was a most exciting discovery. Images obtained in this way revealed what the eye could not see. Gestures were broken down into an infinite number of positions, each one seized at a brief, specific moment. The lines of the body became more clearly distinguishable. Each finely delineated outline was distinct from both the preceding and succeeding images. The discovery was widely circulated, illustrated, and discussed on innumerable occasions. The process even gave rise to a work of art: Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase.267 However, it should be noted that this was a demanding process, involving a specific manner of treating the body. Each physical line was “stripped away,” leaving only the anatomical framework of the gesture. For this reason, particular precautions were taken and the object was presented with great precision. It was Marey’s practice for quite some time, for example, to cover his subjects in clinging black garments marked with white lines, helping to “reduce them to simple contours.”268 He photographed “artificial” silhouettes, revealing his primary objective: to highlight axes and vectors, focusing on the most clear-cut representation of bodily outline. With the improvement in contrast that occurred in the photography of the late 1870s, the nude image became the focus of anatomical studies. Photographers involved in this quest adopted it as their principal theme, producing a multitude of fleeting poses269 captured by the lens. Eadweard

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Muybridge was quick to note the result, as he described certain pictures that were now… “sufficiently sharp to give a recognizable silhouette portrait of the [sulky] driver and some of them exhibited the horse with all four of his feet clearly lifted at the same time…”270 These figures, reproduced in countless plates during the 1880s, were quite simply another form of “silhouette.” Nude men and women were photographed “walking” or “running,” “ascending” or “descending,” “carrying” or “throwing,” “jumping” or “dancing,” “falling” or “climbing.” All these images were intended to reproduce gestures, movements, and features with total exactitude, and are distinctive in their own way. They establish a specific outline, now no longer defined by clothing, but by a more essential contour, this being the basic physical structure forming the body’s boundaries in the narrowest sense of the word. In this way, the silhouette that emerged through these processes became a newly familiar image. Appearances were depicted in their most fundamental and pared-down form. A new silhouette had materialized in all its diversity, presenting the closest possible view of the human figure.

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Eadweard Muybridge, Young Girl Nude Playing with a Ball, 1887. Paris, Musée d’Orsay. The photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey in the 1870s explored movement. Each successive instant of an action was therefore shown in a series of separate, unique bodily profiles. To increase the accuracy of the documentation, the figures were nude in order to display the true lines of their anatomy, enabling the photographer to capture the physical dynamics involved as precisely as possible. This reestablished the silhouette, as its image likewise became more familiar.

P h oto g rap h y and F i g ures in Motion

THE FEMALE CONTOUR : FROM SLENDER TO EROTIC

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he word “silhouette” accordingly became a specific term, establishing itself even more forcefully at the end of the 19th century. This was echoed by the notably streamlined treatment of its graphic equivalent. In 1902, for instance, La vie parisienne depicted the “silhouettes of the fashionable world”271 profiled by the High Life Tailor : the figures were portrayed in sketch form, with obviously abbreviated lines. Both the word and the image penetrated the world of fashion. By reducing contours and bodily profiles, they suggested a norm, causing the Courrier français, for example, to describe the “ravishingly slender silhouettes of today’s elegant females.”272 In other words, the term became definitively associated with physical appearance. The most important aspect of this phenomenon, however, lay elsewhere, and involved a convergence of factors. Physical appearance itself, in particular that of women, underwent a profound transformation at the end of the 19th century. The new, sharper line affected not only image, but also “reality,” introducing a completely new attitude to fashion and body culture. Physical contours were presented differently, favoring both a slimmer line and portrayal in silhouette form. The requirements of everyday life called for a new body shape, freer and more honed. This mainly concerned the female figure. The Almanach de l’Illustration offered its own perspective on the subject in 1876: “Immediately after the crinoline, that bell-shaped structure during whose reign there was no door wide enough for ladies to pass, came the close-fitting gowns worn today. Elements previously concealed were now revealed. Every contour was accentuated beneath these smooth skirts.”273 The pertinence of the term “silhouette” was now no longer confined to illustration, but extended to the “real” world. This established its success still more decisively and coincided with specific circumstances, when bodily contours underwent a “paring down” process. A clear shift occurred: voluminous dresses were abandoned, contours became sleeker and material was molded to the body, in contrast to the multiple folds and gathers that had characterized previous fashions. Indeed, garments seemed to become

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lighter, providing increased freedom of movement. This change began in the 1870s and was marked by a number of phases. Firstly, skirts lost their volume at the front, freeing the legs and allowing them greater mobility. Such is the figure presented by Nana at the Grand Prix de Paris, in her “little bodice and tunic of blue silk, which fitted tightly to her body and was then bunched up in a voluminous mass behind her waist, audaciously revealing the contours of her thighs during that era of billowing skirts.”274 The second phase, which started in the 1890s, saw the elimination of the longfashionable folds of material, which gathered at the back of the dress and “mimicked” an elegantly curved back. “Frills and furbelows” now disappeared, as outfits became suppler and simpler. An example of this is the elegant female figure dominating the poster for the Biennale de l’Automobile in 1907: bathed in an orangehued glow emanating from the lights of the Grand Palais, her fluid lines are clearly delineated.275 A dramatic change in physical appearance had occurred. In the case of women’s clothing, the body’s “boundaries” now dominated those of their garments for the first time: “A dress will not do nowadays unless it is close-fitting, or, in a word, clinging.”276 The whole “look” became tighter, the bust more prominent and the hips and legs more defined. The shape was based on a “continuous” line. In this way, the word “silhouette” was more particularly suited to expressing the “reality” of physical appearance than at any previous time. Corsets still remained an indisputably necessary underpinning for bodies traditionally regarded as “weak.” The hips, now more exposed, inevitably called for a new type of support. To maintain the curve of the back, with its strongly emphasized arch, a whalebone foundation garment was required. The 1890s, therefore, saw the widespread emergence of corsets with elongated, accentuated curves: “Corsets should be long, and more

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Poster advertising Bompard’s Proton tonic for women, early 20th century. Private Collection. With its simplified lines, streamlined contours, and positioning at the edge of a scene, the female silhouette served as a frame in early 20th century posters by demarcating the image.

T h e F e m a l e C ontour : F ro m S l ender to E rotic

A woman standing in front of her mirror wearing a tightly laced corset, an advertisement for the London Corset Company, 1905. Advertisements for corsets introduced the contemporary spirit of the silhouette in their own way, with their images of bodies reduced to their “narrowest” form. Moreover, with its constraint on the hips and upper thighs, the corset imposed a “honed” appearance on dresses themselves.

all-enveloping than ever, the whalebone reaching very low on the hips.”277 Corset production continued to rise, with 1,500,000 sold in 1870, and 6,000,000 in 1900.278 Their names, too, reflected expectations: the Siren, with its models the “Dragonfly” and “Plastic,” were guaranteed to create “the silhouette required by today’s fashions;”279 the Persephone “slimmed down the hips to a miraculous degree,”280 while the Sonakor was exclusively “hygienic.”281 Each model upheld the aesthetic canon, extending and arching the small of the back, as if to help produce the figures that dresses—now devoid of folds and gathers—no longer created. Contours became increasingly linear, despite being more constricted. The transformation in women’s status that occurred at the end of the 19th century may well have contributed to this simplification of line, as an affirmation of freedom and the need to present a more “pared-down” bodily shape. It is important to note, however, that for a time this form, with its arched back, presented a paradox: it slowed the gait, making poses, or even immobility, easier than movement. The line of the body may have been

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simplified, but it was not yet liberated. This form maintained an “imprisoning” effect, its fragile, almost “twisted,” version of contours unquestionably hindering women’s mobility. This is the famous “S” bend, that sinuous curve crudely described by Nell Kimball, the resplendent demimondaine from San Francisco, as she explained the shape that was internationally fashionable at the end of the 19th century: “The hourglass figure needed very tight lacing, squeezing everything in but tits and ass.”282 This inevitably constrained both posture and gait. The very shape of the letter “S,” regularly reproduced in illustrations, reflects this: the body appears “fractured,” the waist elongated to an extreme degree. This image also features in postcards at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, where the deliberately twisted “S” form casts an elegant, birdlike shadow. This was effectively a silhouette, yet of a very specific type283. In 1903, Georges Meunier even presented a satirical image based on shapes, with an interplay involving circles, a “protruding” bust, a “hollowed-out” back and rounded hips: “Above and Below, or the geometric formula of the fashionable female: S for Sylph.”284 While it may have produced a slender, refined appearance, this exaggeratedly arched figure was highly restrictive. The new manner of exhibiting hips and loins lent itself to eroticized images. Henri Gerbault’s risqué illustration of 1905 encapsulated this effect in the reaction of the man acknowledging to his female interlocutor that he “couldn’t ask for more”285 than the sight of her hips, as she professed her “disdain” by turning her back on him. While this was certainly a ribald response to the style, it did demonstrate the completely new lines, with Gerbault drawing the actual hips, now no longer concealed by a dress. As the male character stares at them, the simplified lines take on an erotic quality, suggesting elements “beneath” hitherto inaccessible to the gaze. The theme was repeated in countless late 19th-century illustrations featuring the solid masculine silhouette contrasted with that of the female, its supple, delicately undulating contours most frequently depicted from behind. Examples include the elderly man confessing his desire at the sight of female passersby in Henriot’s

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Leonetto Cappiello, poster advertising Champagne de Rochegré, late 19th century. Private Collection. The more closely fitting dresses of the late 19th century were a sign of increased freedom for women, although the longer corsets maintained the arched curve of the back—a mark of tradition. Lines were sharper, silhouettes slimmer. This legitimized the word still further, despite the irrefutable new dominance of the “S” shaped curve.

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illustrations,286 and the heavier male characters gazing at the woman offering her Lajaunie lozenges “recommended for smokers,” in Francisco Tamagno’s poster.287 A further instance is Préjelan’s image of a woman, her waist tightly cinched, which appeared in an issue of L’Illustré national. Her figure was intended to portray “bawdiness” and “arousal;” the drawing was ironically entitled “Contemplation”288 by its artist. Posters, in particular, featured a great many sinuous female figures dominating an image in order to enhance the appeal of a product. These profiles are clearly silhouetted, their lines undulating and honed. This emphasis on line was of paramount importance; indeed, a number of illustrators turned to the old process of depicting subjects in black and setting them against a white background so that they stood out sharply. Maurice Toussaint’s illustrations for Octave Feuillet’s novel, Histoire d’une Parisienne, offer the best example of this in the very early 20th century. There, the women’s sinuous figures stand out in contrast to the stiffer forms of the men, both revealed more clearly than ever before by the distinctively outlined contours with their flat black shading.289 The Courrier français highlighted the “expressive” power of black, emphasizing the extent to which bodily contours could “lose the abrupt character of their outline if juxtaposed with color.”290 The new contours reflected the term “silhouette” more strongly ever before and, indeed, recalled the old methods of tracing its image.

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t is important to note an additional shift that occurred at the end of the 19th century, when the nude became stylized and commonplace. This did not just involve the nude images that appeared in photographs depicting movement, the register of which, as we have seen, remained distinct and academic. It also included nudes portrayed by press illustrators—whose work remained more popular and above all more widespread—and by painters and printmakers. Here, too, the images displayed a clearly linear style, while attention was centered firmly on female models. The originality of this approach lay in the fact that it freed itself from the academic image of the nude, with its references to the great classic works of art. Instead, the new focus was on nude images of “ordinary” women, and glimpses of the “hidden,” intimate aspects of their lives. They were shown at their toilette, and at private moments in their “everyday existence,”291 involving gestures relating to personal activities. A shift in boundaries between the hidden and the visible now occurred. There was increasing emphasis on revealing private aspects of existence, and a different conception of modesty. This doubtless represented a new, frank attitude to the expression of desire in a society that was becoming more democratic, particularly after 1870. Greater liberty was also evident in the approach to the intimate and the familiar. This explains the increasing number of nude images in the new genre that appeared in periodicals, illustrated magazines, and even in paintings, at the end of the century. Women were depicted standing up in their tubs,292 stepping into their baths, getting out of or into their beds, “languid” and “unclothed.”293 The markedly naturalistic scenes by Degas, with their portrayals of women bathing, washing, drying, and caring for their hair, epitomized this genre in the years between 1870 and 1880.294 These late 19th-century images reflect a marked preference for depicting the female form, with a view to symbolizing beauty and emphasizing eroticism. Beauty pageants held at theatrical spectacles and balls during the 1890s formed part of this phenomenon, so that a state of undress became quite a familiar image, with competitions for the most beautiful legs, neck, and breasts, for example.295 Café concerts presented an increasing number of dances that displayed the performers’ billowing froth of petticoats,296 and shows at the Moulin Rouge and the Casino de Paris promoted “revealing” outfits. The Concert des Ambassadeurs, among others, gave the simple title “Déshabillée,”297 or

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“undressed” to a review it presented in 1890: “This was the reign of exposure and display, of the transparent, the half-naked.”298 There is no doubt that this shifting of boundaries with regard to modesty was also subject to resistance and prohibition. The nudes printed in Fin de siècle, La Vie parisienne and Le Courrier français were presented in a combative vein. “A twelve-year fight,”299 was the headline in Le Courrier français in 1898, accompanying a drawing by Adolphe Willette portraying its owner, Jules Roques, who was the subject of numerous lawsuits. The notion of “affront to public decency,” however, relaxed in severity over time, with the “most serious” newspapers emphasizing the “injustice of legal actions.”300 The image of the unclothed body became an established phenomenon. As it developed and spread, the depiction of nudes in everyday settings became an increasingly familiar concept. It established a culture and signaled a shift in attention, with the implication that “every woman” might view herself in a new way, scrutinizing her own contours, appraising her own body. Several examples of this were featured in these same periodicals. They include the images of “one of our most attractive Parisiennes,” whose first concern, immediately after her bath, was to “cast a searching glance at herself in her mirror,”301 and of another elegant female, who, “worried that her hips might be spreading,” shuts herself “alone in her bathroom for an hour,”302 to survey herself thoroughly. Literature offers numerous further examples. Émile Zola’s Nana of 1882 features a striking scene inspired by the “fantasies” of Lucie Lévy, the Parisian socialite of the 1870s, which he had studied at length: “her stomach and bosom naked, she approached her mirrored wardrobe and smiled at the reflection of her beauty, bathed in a rosy glow from the flames of a great fire burning behind her.”303 Octave Mirbeau lingers over the description of the same gestures in his portrayal of Madame Lanlaire in Le Journal d’une femme de chambre (1900). The character is seen “minutely” examining her curves as she spends “a quarter of an hour at a time at her long mirror.”304 Naturally, such close scrutiny can give rise to overriding anxiety, with thoughts of potential bodily deterioration triggering a feeling of dread: “Standing before the large cheval mirror in her bathroom, she examined, with a terrified eye, the expansion of what had hitherto been no more than a rounded stomach. Now, her hips bulged, her chest was bloated, her delicate face had become rounded, commonplace…”305

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Edgar Degas, Woman Seated on the Edge of the Bath, Sponging Her Neck, ca. 1880–1895, Paris, Musée d’Orsay. The image of the nude in the late 19th century was presented in a completely unfamiliar, commonplace form. It was seen in the context of everyday life, breaking with academic traditions regarding the portrayal of the anatomy and freeing the body in the process. This favored an unprecedented and decisive linearity of form, imposing the “silhouetted” outline.

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This issue was no longer limited to the “exterior” display of the self, but extended to the individual’s view of their own flesh, seen in a looking glass. The presence of “full-length” mirrors, which had become a more familiar

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Louis Morin, Carnavals parisiens, Paris, 1897. “Fête du nu”, print by Jules Chéret.

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sight from the mid-century onwards, certainly assisted this examination. The discovery of a chemical process facilitated the production of these objects at a low cost. The use of sodium sulfate transformed glass manufacture, and the silvering process was now carried out with silver rather than mercury.306 Large mirrors could be bought on credit at the major stores from the 1870s onwards. But the innovative aspect was the theme of nudity, particularly in connection with close, personal appraisal. A major preoccupation was established: attention now focused squarely on the unclothed frame. This transformed the evaluation of the self, shifting scrutiny to the anatomical features and emphasizing those contours concealed by garments, for which the word “silhouette” would soon acquire an increasingly specific connotation. This, quite simply, heralded a completely new theme— that of the individual’s “own” silhouette, to be appraised and observed. As an inevitable consequence, the urge to accentuate the bodily outline was so marked that illustrators turned once more to the black silhouette. This may be seen in Jules Chéret’s drawings of late 19th century Parisian

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reviews and “carnivals,” with figures clad in tight-fitting black costumes.307 Further examples include the drawings by Eugène Rapp featured in the Nouveaux Contes du Palais of 1889.308 These depict the dreams of Dubonneau, the legal journalist languishing in a provincial city and given to erotic musings. Here, “floating” images of naked, moving forms appear as black shadows, a technique intended to endow them with graceful slenderness. The use of black emphasizes their tousled hair and the indented lines of their hips and breasts. In this way, the silhouette motif adapted itself more effectively than ever to a new demand: the task of outlining the true contours of the body in all their “reality.” The use of black alone in some of these illustrations is sufficient to provide clarity of outline. A new world of increased expectation was established, mobilizing aspirations. A further influence, albeit partial, on the practice of revealing the body, was the gradual emergence of leisure activities such as sea bathing and beach holidays, entailing increased exposure to the sun and to water. This new emphasis on formerly concealed contours found its expression in the simple

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Nouveaux Contes du Palais, “Le rêve de Dubonneau”, Paris, 1889, print by Eugène Rapp.

T h e N ude B eco m es “ C o m m onp l ace ”

A. Grévin, “À la plage,” A. Grévin and A. Huart, Les Parisiennes, Paris, 1879. With its gradually “diminishing” material and the unprecedented “emergence” of the skin, late-19thcentury beachwear accustomed the gaze to figures that presented a more direct image of the anatomy. Just as gradually, and more emphatically, the word “silhouette” came to denote the actual contours of the body.

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form of the swimsuit. The standard beachwear comprising ample “paletot” dresses worn over long bloomers, which was still obligatory in the mid-19th century, was replaced by increasingly lighter attire from the late 1870s onwards. Alfred Grévin’s Parisienne at the beach of 1879, for instance, wears a tunic that reveals her shoulders and drawers hitched up to the mid-thigh.309 Early 20th century drawings by Bottaro depict yet more revealing outfits that cling to the body, markedly low at the neck and high at the leg. Bodily forms imperceptibly “reduced” to exposed skin became a familiar sight through beachwear.

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THE HONING OF THE FEMALE FOR M

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he “regular” bodily outline was also subject to change, as the female figure underwent a further modification in the early 20th century, with a decisive transformation occurring after 1910. This focused directly on clothing; attention was no longer confined to the appearance of the “nude,” but extended to the increasingly streamlined, narrow form imposed on garments. Everything began with resistance to the corset, a rejection formulated by women themselves. They cited the changes in their daily lives to express the need for freedom: “I have never been able to write ten even reasonably good lines while my bust was subjected to the torture of the corset.”310 They referred to their activities in “studios and offices,”311 describing the “ frequent bending motions”312 and movements rendered almost impossible by their rigid corsetry. There was even a collective protest movement. This took the form of an international league for the “reform of female dress,” and brought together associations of “Ladies and Doctors” from Holland, Germany, England, and Austria, which joined forces against the corset at the beginning of the 20th century.313 In 1908, the “League of Mothers” extended the crusade, distributing 20,000 brochures entitled “For the Natural Beauty of women. Against the Mutilating Corset.” They collected signatures and published the names of their supporters. The world of work played a decisive role. The number of female office workers increased ninefold between 1860 and 1914, rising from 95,000 to 843,000.314 The “shift from domestic activity to white-collar work” was “massive.”315 In France, women occupied 40 percent of such posts in 1906. This situation gave rise to the growing conviction of an incompatibility between the emergence of a female workforce and the rigid whalebone confining their bodies. Women’s entry into the public sphere changed both their physical contours and their mobility. Coco Chanel declared herself a champion of “the active woman who needs to feel at ease in her clothes,”316 while Femina even claimed to have invented a new “sport,” exemplified by the “young generation.” This was “the art of working while remaining an elegant woman.”317 In 1901, Lily Braun proclaimed: “The whole evolution of women’s work clearly demonstrates to those who are not blind, or claim not to be, that no other phenomenon in the modern world has produced such revolutionary effects.”318 In other words, the consequence of this phenomenon was so significant as to transform the very manner in which the body was “revealed.” It introduced

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the postures characteristic of the modern era, a freedom in the movement of the hips and a suppleness in the body; traditional artifice was rejected in a determined move that established an unprecedented break with the past. The abandoning of whalebone corsetry during the early 1900s had a specific effect: the strongly defined curve of the back, which had been accentuated by slim-fitting dresses, was now obliterated. Women’s whole appearance underwent a dramatic transformation: the hips became slender, the gait more nimble, and the legs extended into a slimline torso, forming an emphatically vertical effect. Above all, movement was “liberated,” giving way to a “natural suppleness that had been repressed by its shackles.”319 This was the very contour created by Poiret at the same time, and described in L’Illustration: “straighter, a less ample bosom, producing a streamlined, supple impression.” This was a work of art, “giving soul to substance.”320 For the first time, a change had a direct and very marked influence on movement. Every aspect of the appearance was entirely remodeled. The tightly constricted waist and the “S” shaped figure, accentuated by whalebone foundation garments, were consigned to the past. The soughtafter figure was now willowy rather than curvaceous, a reversal of aspiration symbolized by letters, as “S” gave way to “I.” Contours were straight as opposed to rounded, with the emphasis on achieving both a svelte and a more elongated figure. “All women seem to have grown.”321 The look called for long, slim, tapering legs, extending into an elongated torso: “long, limber thighs,”322 proclaimed Votre beauté. This is evident from the fact that the length from feet to waist, which had long been double that of the torso in 19th-century fashion periodicals, now reached three times that length in those very same publications.323 This is confirmed by Kees van Dongen’s324 portraits, as well as by Laboureur’s landscapes, including La Promenade au phare325 of 1925, with its multiplicity of vertical forms. A further example is provided by Chanel’s outfits, which enabled women to “buy themselves a slim figure.”326 The word

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“The Gibson Girl”, a drawing featured in L’Illustration, 18 February 1911. An American ideal became widespread in the early 20th century, celebrating the “freedom” of the female body, as demonstrated here by the woman walking on the beach. She wears no corset, and her garments flow over the contours of her anatomy. following page

Kees van Dongen, Amusement, 1914, Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble. Early 20th-century painters echoed a fashion, which for the first time emphasized the bodily contours. The female figure no longer described an “S” shape, but an “I”. The silhouette now designated the general appearance as well the “line” of the body in its strict sense.

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“silhouette” established itself yet more emphatically as the most apposite way to describe this radical transformation in bodily contours. Marcel Proust’s account of Odette’s metamorphosis remains one of the most dazzling descriptions of the alterations to the female figure that occurred between 1910 and 1920: “Odette seemed now to be cut out in a single figure, wholly confined within a line which, following the contours of the woman, had abandoned the winding paths, the capricious re-entrants and salients, the radial points, the elaborate dispersions of the fashions of former days, but also, where it was her anatomy that went wrong by making unnecessary digressions within or without the ideal circumference traced for it, was able to rectify, by a bold stroke, the errors of nature, to make up, along a whole section of its course, for the failure as well of the human as of the textile element. The pads, the preposterous “bustle” had disappeared, as well as those tailed corsets which, projecting under the skirt and stiffened by rods of whalebone, had so long amplified Odette with an artificial stomach and had given her the appearance of being composed of several incongruous pieces which there was no individuality to bind together. The vertical fall of fringes, the curve of trimmings had made way for the inflexion of a body which made silk palpitate as a siren stirs the waves, gave to cambric a human expression now that it had been liberated, like a creature that had taken shape and drawn breath, from the long chaos and nebulous envelopment of fashions at length dethroned.”327 The same process seems to have taken place in the case of Albertine, suddenly “set upright” in the dresses “draped on her” as described by the narrator.328 The “flapper” fashion reinforced this transformation. The subject of countless descriptions and commentaries, this physical aesthetic accompanied a cultural change that began in the 1920s. Legs were revealed under tubular dresses and a new mobility was established as the bodily form became generally lighter and more supple, with narrower contours. A more “masculine” identity gradually emerged: hairstyles were shorter and waists

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and necks were no longer constrained. The physical transformation accompanied a cultural shift, expressed by Monique Lerbier, the flapper in Victor Marguerite’s novel of 1922 through her assertion “I belong to myself alone,”329 and translated into bodily “mutation.” This is personified by Marlene Dietrich, with her narrow hips and slender figure, in the films of Josef von Sternberg at the dawn of the 1930s. It is also epitomized by Louise Brooks with her bobbed hair, straight dress, and almost dancing gait in films by Georg Wilhelm Pabst during the same period. The change was quite fluently translated into the cabaret performances of the Roaring Twenties: “The energetic woman who loves to be active demands styles that are light and very easy to wear, as well as elegant.”330 The result of these developments was the increasingly firm conviction of the supreme importance of body-line. In a recent work on Jean Patou, Johanna Zanon portrayed the haute couture designer in the 1920s, selecting his models according to the slenderness of their ankles, the length of their legs, and the slimness of their hips. Most notably, she described how “his eyes would follow a woman’s silhouette,”331 as if he were “carried away” by this initial point of reference. One certainty was now established: “A woman is her figure.”332

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A G RO W I N G PE R S O N A L I M PE R AT I V E

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he theme of the silhouette was now more closely linked with the anatomy than ever before. The figure had become the focus of unprecedented critical attention, with the demand for a “lean” body in its “true” form. One reference point was decisively established: inevitably, the ”thinnest” figures and limbs represented the fashionable ideal, the image that was both desired and promoted. This intensified the process of scrutinizing the self and appraising one’s own bodily contours. A shift that had already begun to take place was now confirmed: the new emphasis was on the silhouette as a personal, rather than an exterior entity, as the focus was transferred from the perceived to the personally experienced object. Fashionable dressmakers, with their particular standards and stipulations, applied their own terms to this change. Their aim, which became evident from 1910 onwards, was to ensure that material fitted as closely as possible to the actual lines of the body. This became a never-ending aspiration, involving a succession of increasingly intensive trials and approximations: “the quest was to find the silhouette, the complete impression, the indefinable movement which would balance the body from the neck to the heels, with a poise which would not shame the finest Tanagra figurines.”333 Following much effort dedicated to cultivating taste and to preparing the female body, the importance of the form beneath the clothing was established, with its hidden reality and its “language:” “Our garments and costumes have a tendency to be shorter this spring, but only with a view to reducing and molding the silhouette still further.”334 This became a standard imperative, and was reiterated by the Messager des modes in the early 20th century: “The effect is prettier if the dress follows the lines of the body, discreetly delineating the silhouette.”335 The risk now lay in revealing too much, in the untimely exposure of one’s personal physique. Any flaws in the contours of one’s figure became much more obvious if garments were worn without a corset, resulting in a potential confrontation between each individual and an unacceptable truth. The 1920s introduced a whole world of possible imperfections, suddenly apparent immediately beneath the surface of the new materials, forming a chaotic mass of inappropriately named defects. A new fear arose, more acute and specific than ever: “The transparent materials we wear in summer are treacherous to our silhouettes, so let us beware.”336 Dressmakers and fashion magazines chimed in with their own recommendations and warnings: “Your silhouette depends on

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Poster promoting the “Nuit de l’élégance,” a gala evening organized in support of disfigured war veterans. Illustrated poster by Vila, ca. 1920–1925, Perrin Collection.

Doctor Mortat, “L’extension du dos” (“Stretching the back”), La Culture physique de la femme élégante, Paris, ca. 1930, watercolor print by G. P. Joumard. The desire to “sculpt the silhouette” was established as an explicit aim behind the fitness exercises of the 1930s, as “watching one’s figure” became mandatory. The word “silhouette” became associated with obligation as well as individuality

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your hips. And indeed, you cannot achieve that supple line and the silhouette demanded by fashion if your hips are even the slightest bit too large.”337 This had become an “inward-looking” quest, with a fixed purpose. Now, a new type of silhouette emerged besides those that featured in press illustrations with their progressively sharper forms designed to catch the eye, and the increasingly varied figures intended to illustrate social groups and practices. This was the personal silhouette, which had become a site of unprecedented anxiety and individual identity. The word became a challenge and a confrontation, a focus for the constant quest to achieve the ideal figure: “Hone your silhouette. Bear in mind that large hips will make your figure heavier and destroy the graceful line of your silhouette.”338 The directive was clearly formulated: “Be the sculptor of your own silhouette.”339 The theme crystalized and was transformed into a question of success or failure, judgments that even extended to individuals themselves. Indeed, in 1927 the singer Yvette Guilbert proudly entitled a chapter of her memoirs “My Silhouette,” in which she listed her attributes: “A very slim neck, very long and rounded, very supple, slender, sloping shoulders, no bust … hips, very long legs, which were rumored to be thin.”340 A drive toward “self improvement” was now set in motion; this entailed a quest for contrivances that would replace the corset in presenting the exposed bodily contours to best advantage. Such stratagems included the clever use of material: “The svelte silhouette achieved by the delicate application of drapery”341 and the “spiral and diagonal”342 forms favored by Jean Patou. The cut of a garment was equally significant: “Fur obeys the demands of fashion, as the movements of the fur itself are adapted to the silhouette.”343 From the 1920s onwards, vast amounts of corrective procedures were also available. These included the “neck slimmer,” with its “radioactive” rubber band, intended to enhance the graceful appearance of a neck no longer concealed by hair,344 and the “Vaco slimming cup,” a suction device that was applied to different parts of the body in turn, encouraging “blood circulation in the adipose tissue” in order to give “your silhouette the sinuous and supple line admired by all.”345 There were also “Clarks bands,” fine rubber strips worn under the stockings and intended to “slim the ankles and hone the legs,”346 and the ”Roussel belt,” a firm band which, when worn around the waist, provided the “female silhouette with the new figure demanded by today’s fashions.”347 Lastly, there was the girdle, a fine, elasticated sheath, which replaced the discredited whalebone structures. There was clearly still a temptation to substitute new devices for the now-defunct corset. However, the battery of new solutions suggested the possibility of an “active” response. These practices were intended to demonstrate the existence of a “muscular corset,”348 through the development of countless gymnastic exercises to enhance appearance and posture. In the 1930s, for example, Doctor Mortat devised his Physical culture for the elegant woman,”349 which

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involved flexibility exercises, the use of light dumbbells, and stretching drills. Vogue magazine, too, reiterated similar advice in issues dating from the 1930s: “Above all, today’s fashions require a supple, youthful, lissome figure. Now, this physical flexibility, this graceful and youthful silhouette can only be acquired through suppleness in the spinal column.”350 The role of muscles as “actors” essential to the acquisition of “sculptural beauty” was emphasized by Georges Hébert in 1919: “Beauty and strength cannot be achieved, and above all retained, other than through exercise.”351 The idea that it was possible to take action on one’s own figure was now firmly established, assisted by the metaphor of sculpture: “the body, like a piece of clay, may be molded at will by physical culture and beauty treatments.”352 And yet beyond this intensified investment in altering one’s silhouette lay the threat of possible failure, of attempted corrective measures that might prove ineffective. This is confirmed by readers’ letters to magazines in the 1930s, with their endless descriptions of those parts of their bodies which had resisted their laborious efforts: “I have very wide shoulders and hips. When I look at myself from behind in the mirror, they make me look too fat, though I’m actually thin. What’s more, I can’t put any weight on: I’ve been to the doctor, and all he did was to prescribe rest and a tonic. Nothing works. And really, deep down I don’t want to put on weight, because I look bad enough now without any clothes on, so if I’m fat I’ll be even uglier when I’m dressed. I have a wonderful excuse, as nothing at all can be done. Do the exercises for bandy legs in the January issue really work? Can you really change bowlegs to become beautiful, and how long does it take? Even though I’m skinny, I still have a stomach, which might be due to my hollow back. Do you think girdles work better than corsets? My hip bones are very protuberant. And one other question, which you are often asked, but I really must know: can a small bust, which has sagged by two or three centimeters be improved? My breasts deteriorated very early and the birth of my baby hasn’t helped matters, quite the opposite. When I stretch out my arms and push my chest forward, my breasts are in the right place. I’m not asking for the impossible, just for a noticeable improvement. Is that possible?”353 Among the new demands that emerged in the early 20th century, embedded within the theme of the silhouette lay the largely unprecedented risk of potential failure, both of form and identity.

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THE HONING OF THE MALE FOR M

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his demand also applied to the male figure in the early 20th century, albeit to a lesser degree. A trim form was required of men as well as women, generating further radical changes in fashion. Men’s jackets became narrower, trousers slimmer, and longer coats were worn over honed bodies. The tubular style prevailed. The 1930s blazer provides a perfect example of this trend; often featuring vertical stripes, it produced the effect of a streamlined physique.354 This was also evident in American fashions, among others the “Kuppenheimer” line of 1924, with its long, straight jackets and enveloping coats, all cut close to the body.355 Loose or curved shapes were systematically rejected and “natural-style, sporty shirts”356 appeared, designed to “put an end” to material that “spiraled around the body.”357 In 1924, the Catalogue de la Manufacture de Saint-Étienne also popularized the “double-breasted” jacket,358 the shape of which was markedly unforgiving to stouter forms. These represented a new “martyrdom” for Henri Béraud’s obese character in his novel of 1922, who proclaims: “modern clothing—that is the enemy.”359 As with the case of women, there was a context to this new, slimmer male form. The streamlined physique embodied a dynamic, suggesting speed and mobility. It corresponded to the changes that were transforming the world of work and activities during the same period. These included a new emphasis on rapidity, coupled with the physical capabilities this entailed. It reflected an environment characterized by an admiration for speed and efficiency, which required trim, light, and honed bodies. The first to experience this were the Americans. In his long survey on “American life” in 1892, Paul de Rousiers emphasized the effervescence of the urban landscape, with the maelstrom of traffic, the hubbub of communication, the “hurried gait of passersby,” the rushing servant-boys and “little messengers,” all forming an “intense display” of constant movement.360 The impression was one of seething activity, an atmosphere of hustle and bustle where slowness was an anathema. Here, technology clearly reigned supreme. And, in a marked paradox, it was the world of technology, not that of

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Poster advertising Supérior clothing, illustrated by Xim, ca. 1925, Perrin Collection.

Poster advertising Astailor clothing, illustrated by Jack, 1930–1940, Perrin Collection. In the 20th century, the word “silhouette” was conclusively established as denoting the outlines of the body. The theme was particularly significant as these outlines changed with the advent of the 1920s. For men, this meant much broader shoulders and an increasingly narrow, markedly defined waist. Double-breasted styles also gave the physique a singularly honed appearance. opposite

Lyonel Feininger, On the Beach, 1913. Paris, Musée national d’Art moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou. Cubism revealed itself as a way of simplifying and schematizing bodily forms, leading to a svelte, streamlined effect.

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“nature,” which transformed and regenerated the image of the body. This was the world of “power and flexible performances,”361 of machines of every type, where the emphasis was on output and functionality. It explains the firm preference for lean, angular physiques, and the adoption of the word silhouette, with its principle of fluid contours. The concept extended to Europe. It is expressed in a quasi-symbolic statement by the job recruitment officer in Henri Béraud’s 1922 novel Le Martyre de l’obèse, as he discards any applicant at the first suspicion of stoutness: “Come back and see me when you’ve lost weight. We need active men, not roly-polies.”362 This imperative inevitably directed attention back to the personal domain, as the silhouette became an object of effort and scrutiny. This is reflected in Edmond Desbonnet’s Rois de la force, with its admiring descriptions of the “silhouettes” of wrestlers from Toulouse.363 Examining and correcting one’s physique was now a constant concern: standing in front of mirrors, men would calculate the measurements of their muscle contours. Early 20th-century publicity promoting the Automobile Club gymnasium, for instance, emphasized the presence of “mirrors,” enabling patrons to “correct”364 themselves more effectively. Books on bodily treatments and maintenance suggested regularly comparing one’s clothed and unclothed form in order to highlight the impact of the basic physique, and to demonstrate the effects of exercising the muscles on the outlines of one’s clothing.365 This recalls the “code of strength” established by Georges Hébert in 1911,366 with its plethora of measurements and charts designed to facilitate a good balance between respective standards governing physical appearance and vigor. A further example is Eugen Sandow’s “chart of measurements”367 of 1900, which was also one of the first to suggest gauging a muscle’s increase in volume following a specifically focused workout. Accordingly, the male bodies he presented possessed a typically “athletic” physique: a broad chest, bulging muscles and a narrow, sculpted waist. Another notable individual was Bernarr Macfadden, whose pioneering “body building” involved working on each muscle in turn in front of a mirror.368 The “development” of the male silhouette was now established, with the focus directed towards the most muscular contours of the body. At an even deeper level, it was associated with that decidedly modern drive to “progress” and to improve one’s own “condition,” in the expectation of attaining ever higher grades and levels. This mirrors the system adopted, in a broader sense, by a society that in the early 20th century was gradually orienting itself towards the tertiary sector.

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A final observation in this regard involves a discreet but perceptible increase in similarity between male and female contours from the first decades of the 20th century. Physiques were generally slimmer, legs longer, and hips more honed, creating a totally unprecedented resemblance of bodily forms. From the 1920s onwards, illustrators took this theme to extremes, one example being Michel Bouchaud in his poster of 1929, with its idyllic depiction of Summer at Monte-Carlo Beach.369 The male and female characters shown standing in front of the sea appear to have cultivated a resemblance, with their identically cut swimming costumes and caps, identically uncovered skin, the matching colored stripes on their swimsuits, and the same slender physiques. The male figure is distinguishable only by his larger frame. This treatment of form was undoubtedly influenced by the prevailing aesthetic of the period, such as the rise of Cubism, the “tendency towards geometric simplification,” and the desire for an increasingly rigorous “order” with regard to both plasticism and linearity.370 The painting by the cubist Lyonel Feininger—Sur la plage—was already, in 1913,371 displaying a shift towards this type of similarity. It is reflected in the sharply delineated forms and the thin, streamlined male and female figures, with their inordinately long legs and striding gait. This resemblance of form, however, was by no means the only feature of note: these silhouette-like figures tell us more. They reflect a world in which male and female genders engaged in an increasingly equal fashion, a world of shared work and leisure activities, and where at times there was even similarity in their movements. The bodily outlines were naturally not identical in every respect, but it was clearly possible to suggest previously unheard-of analogies. Ternat’s promotional illustrations for the liner Normandie, for example, provide a remarkable depiction of similarities and differences.372 The postures of both the men and women occupying the salon areas display the same fluid, streamlined quality, while their almost identical bodily contours are equally notable for their extreme slenderness. The men, however, have broader shoulders, and are characterized in particular by wider torsos above their uniformly narrow waists. While there is still a suggestion of a certain masculine “force,” the presence of other, now shared visual attributes clearly points to a radically altered world.

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side from these possible similarities, the importance of the physical form was now undisputed, with anatomy being decisively established as a criterion. From then on, it was used in an increasing number of contexts. In the early 20th century the word “silhouette” was even given a new, clearly specified application: “The exterior outline of the body determines the line or silhouette,” declared Georges Hébert in 1919 in his text on physical beauty. The surface of the skin was now the “sole” indicator of bodily form. This was no longer confined to the visible bodily contours, but also included those of muscles, joints, and teguments: these defined the surface boundaries of clothing that had itself become more closely enveloping. Examples are provided by heroines in literature. Colette portrays Vinca as she runs, “wet through, tall and boyish, yet slender, with long, inconspicuous muscles.”373 Mac Orlan’s Elsa is described as having “a well-rounded, muscular rump.”374 Beauty manuals of the 1930s reflect this emphasis: “A svelte, sporty silhouette, with slender, muscular limbs unmarred by fat and a lively, open-looking face: that is today’s ideal of feminine beauty.”375 The structure of the limbs was established as a major criterion, introducing a new approach to observation. Now, viewing a “silhouette” involved imagining the “underlying” system forming the basis of the whole structure, and envisaging the basic bodily frame beneath the clothing “at a glance.” As a result, increasing attention was now paid to examples outside the norm, to any malformations of that underlying structure, such as the potential collapse of bodily contours, and the category of change they might undergo. Indeed, the early 20th century saw the creation of a new science devoted to the study of deterioration in the bodily form. It was founded on the observations of orthopedists and doctors: “The general attitude in cities has become deplorable, shoulders droop and are hunched forward, backs are stooped, chests are hollow and flat, stomachs protrude.”376 An entirely new field of study was now introduced. It centered on the gradual changes wrought on the body over time and exacerbated by negligence, circumstances, or social status. This marked a considerable departure from simply analyzing spinal malformations, as was previously the case. The amount of malformations extended, lending themselves to categorization, figures, and charts. Comparisons were systematized; “the

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Louis Chauvois, “Le dessanglage” (“Slackening”), in Les Dessanglés du ventre, Paris, 1925.

Georges Hébert, L’Éducation physique feminine, muscle et beauté plastique, Paris, 1919, “Effondrement des seins” (“The collapse of the breasts”). The increased focus on the silhouette, which from the 1920s denoted the exterior lines of the body, was accompanied by an equally increased focus on the possibility of their collapse. The sagging of the contours due to age, fatigue or a sedentary lifestyle became the topic of scholarly research. Now, for the first time, this collapse gave rise to a series of measures and classifications.

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silhouette of Diana the huntress, full of vigorous grace,”377 for instance, was contrasted with the “unharmonious” examples to be found in everyday life. Different stages of gradual physical decline were classified. In 1919, for example, Georges Hébert distinguished three phases in the fall of the breasts, from the “flattening of the upper section only” to “complete collapse.”378 He also identified three stages in the “thickening of the chin,”379 from an increased roundness of the general contour to the unsightly “double” impression. Paul Richer produced several illustrations of such changes in 1920, effectively transforming them into categories. They include the progressive sagging of the buttocks, accentuated by weight, the gradual “loss of firmness” in the pelvic region, and the steady thickening of the neck, resulting in the “collar of Venus” phenomenon, with its excess flesh.380 Attention was now concentrated on specific areas, an approach heralding the photos taken by today’s plastic surgeons, with their multiple images of progressive bloating and signs of physical “deformity.” Over time, bodily contours give way and droop, forming layers that might be described as a succession of frontiers. In this way, studies of the body’s surface are akin to geological surveys, with the potential for a science of bodily changes similar to the exploration of sedimentary transformations. New terms were coined, too, such as “asthenic habitus,”381 a form characterized by verticality and subject to a general weakness whereby the stomach becomes protuberant and the small of the back curves inwards to compensate for any loss of equilibrium. A slackening of the abdominal muscles382 was likewise identified as a condition, involving a “gastric and intestinal collapse” subject to inevitable worsening over time. Yet another condition was the “saddleback,” which also indicated weakness in the spine and resulted in an “exaggerated

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hollowing of the small of the back.”383 The shadowed image now found a new vocation, as an educational tool for the study of appearance. It was used as such by Jacques Kramer in his “practical guide for the housewife” of 1933. This featured slim, “normal” figures contrasted with examples demonstrating the worrying possibility of “sagging;” these were illustrated by disproportionately formed shadows of the same bodies projected onto a wall.384 This signaled the “return” of the shaded form as an effective way to depict the personal history of the individual silhouette. A long-established preoccupation, the “gradual” deterioration of the bodily form, now became the object of scientific study and calculation. Skills were mobilized and systems for measuring and assessing were established. The aim was to provide a useful, well-orchestrated solution: the honing of the silhouette.

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Paul Richer, “The buttock area of a young and an elderly female,” in Morphologie de la femme, Paris, 1920.

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opposite, above Alfred Thooris, “Les 4 types,” in La Vie par le stade, Paris, 1924. The disparity in bodily structures explored by Grandville, Gavarni, and Daumier in the 1840s became the subject of scholarly, methodical research in the early 20th century. Claude Sigaud presented the best-known system of categorization in 1908. He noted variations in the respective thicknesses and lengths of the legs and torso and classified individuals as respiratory, digestive, muscular, or cerebral. The silhouette was to find its own “systems,” illustrated with the greatest clarity by Alfred Thooris in 1924. opposite, below Alfred Thooris, “Les 4 types,” in La Vie par le stade, Paris, 1924. In addition to the four basic types, Alfred Thooris distinguished “flat,” “cubic,” and “round” categories. The silhouettes are enlivened by the distinctive pattern of shapes on their surfaces.

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hese examples—or even categories—of diversity, were inevitably systematized through this academic approach. They were intuitively suggested in early 19th-century illustrations, where the corresponding proportions of the limbs might differ in individuals of the same height, the upper and lower sections of the body might vary in thickness, and fat or thin areas might be inverted in different parts of the body. These recall the images of diverse bodily forms presented by Daumier.385 However, a major innovation was now introduced, as these examples of possible deterioration were transformed into quantifiable systems. Here, too, science developed models and classifications on the basis of new concerns relating to the anatomy. The old image contrasting the “pear-shaped stomach” and the bulging chest, for instance, now suggested two “standard types,”386 the “respiratory” and the “abdominal,” represented as such in numbered, shaded drawings. The various possible correlations between the length of the legs and that of the torso, or between various parts of the legs themselves, prompted the establishment of types differentiated by the slightest of margins, as did the curves of an arched back, which were likewise measured and calculated. The categories grew, increasing the number of classified forms, expressions and, terms. The breasts, for example, suddenly became the subject of countless diagrams. They could be “thin,” “wide or spread,” “narrow,” “rounded,” “extended,” “separated,” “close together,” “low-set,” “pointing upward,” “fat,” “inflated,” “asymmetrical,” “pointed,” or “pendulous and sagging.”387 The size of the stomach, too, was viewed according to its type: it might be “swollen,” “bloated,” “drooping or sagging.”388 The “varieties of morphology”389 displayed by human forms led to an unprecedented degree of classification. Silhouettes became the focus of statistics and scholarship. From then on, the layman’s understanding of bodily types was complemented by specialized knowledge. As the importance accorded to the “body beneath” increased, the silhouette became the focus of ever-greater scrutiny. Many more general classifications were now established: these “standard models” related to the body as a whole. The new science focused on categories covering a morphological structure in its “totality.” At the very end of the 19th century, Pignet was already looking for an indication of “robustness” by combining the bust measurement with the height of the waist, and making the latter figure double that of the former.390 Illustrations prevailed however,

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Alfred Thooris, “The muscular, round torso of an athlete,” in La Vie par le stade, Paris, 1924.

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being an easier vehicle for “visualization,” and forming a physical record of bodily profiles. In 1910, Félix Régnault devised a means of categorization applying the three principal directions of space: “the vertical,” “the lateral,” and “the frontal dorsal,” according to the predominance of one of the body’s diameters, length, width, or thickness. In this way the build, in the most elementary sense, was viewed in its three dimensions.391 In addition to that reference, which related solely to form, other, more convincing systems were devised, notably those combining “form” with “function.” In 1908, Sigaud proposed a type of classification destined for future use: the “muscular,” the “respiratory,” the “cerebral,” and the “digestive,” listed according to the “region” of the body deemed to be dominant in each individual case. These categories were inspired by the old distinctions between the “lymphatic,” the “nervous,” and the “athletic”392 formulated by Jean Noël Hallé in the early 19th century, but now revised, developed, and numerically assessed. The obvious result was the proposal of rationalized and quantified variations in bodily outlines. The abdomen of the “digestive” type would be contrasted with the protruding chest of the “respiratory” category, while the figure of the “muscular” individual would be compared with the segmented abruptness of line characteristic of the “cerebral” example. In this way, there would be many possible versions of “visible” normality, as confirmed by numbers, drawings, and photographs. This is exemplified by the Morphologie médicale of 1912, a pioneering work by Léon Mac-Auliffe and Auguste Chaillou. It features abundant images of individuals captured by the lens, which were placed on a background of squared paper in order to highlight specific physical types in all their diversity. Once the art of classification had been clearly established, a process of refining and elaborating inevitably followed. A markedly complex approach became evident in the ensuing years. The main categories, for example, were organized into groups and subgroups. In the 1920s, Giacinto Viola added differences in correlations between the limbs: the “brevi-linear,” the “longilinear,” and the “medio-linear” types were distinguished according to the respective heights of their legs or torsos.393 Alfred Thooris added further differences linked to bodily forms themselves: “flat,” “cubic,” or “round” types could be identified by examining bodies as three-dimensional shapes.394 The theme was certainly successful. In 1933, it was adopted by Pierre

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Abraham for his descriptions of the “physique in the theater.”395 He created the additional categories of “concave respiratory” and “convex digestive” individuals, and designated Sarah Bernhardt and Suzanne Després as “respiratory” and “cerebro-muscular” types respectively.396 Profiles of the body undoubtedly became more visually pleasing as a result of the attention now given to both form and surface. Images were lively and contrasting. They also became more complex, sometimes to the point of obscurity. The “respiratory” categories alone, for instance, could be divided into three subcategories: “brevi-linear,” “longi-linear,” and “medio-linear.” These in turn could be split into three further subdivisions: “flat,” “cubic,” or “round.” Overlapping sections became lost in a countless series of combinations, which in fact partly invalidated any attempts at classification. The approach veered towards “anthropometric excesses.”397 The “normal” silhouette emphasized the long established principle of individuality to an extreme degree. Ultimately, these silhouettes depicted individuals and their unique features in all their diversity.

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t cannot be ignored, however, that in addition to these many and varied examples of “normality,” the late 19th century witnessed a different concept of diversity. This was based on what some saw as a “racial” hierarchy of bodily forms. A summary interpretation of Darwin’s theories stimulated the development and longevity of this assertion. The bodily profiles of the human “races” were deemed to be based on their respective distances between those of monkeys or anthropoids. The English naturalist’s major work, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, was first published in 1871 and came to one conclusion: “man is descended from some less highly organized form.”398 Darwin insisted on the existence of a “hierarchy” of the human “races,” manifested primarily by the surface area of the brain: […] “that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilized races.”399 The consequences resulting from such a system of hierarchies were soon revealed to be immeasurable. They have their own history, and were founded on bygone frameworks of reference embedded in both academic and popular culture over several decades. An understanding of their origin is crucial, given the devastating effects they wrought in the 20th century. A dual system was established, stemming from the notions of “race” and “evolution” respectively. This resulted in the differentiation of profiles, and consequently of “silhouettes,” deemed to have “developed” to a greater or lesser extent. The concept of “race,” with its allegedly anatomical reference points, was presumed to be convincing when statistics were used to “link” physical “traits” to the most widely dispersed ethnic territories. Petrus Camper was the first to devise the notion of the “facial angle” in the 18th century, paving the way for the tragic consequences known to all. According to this theory, the “European” forehead was straighter than that of the “Kalmyks” and the “negroes,” increasing the power of the brain; the jaws become smaller, the face becomes more vertical. It was claimed that occidental skulls were more developed; this would be tabulated, calculated, and confirmed through printed images. Bodily “carriage” would likewise be affected, the consequences themselves being linked to the weight of the head, as the heavy jaws of the most ill-favored groups would cause the whole form to tilt forwards, modifying the entire silhouette. Petrus Camper was

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already suggesting a generalized categorization of bodily forms based on “race:” “The Kalmyk peoples’ heads are visibly much larger than ours, whereas their bodies are much smaller; as a result they cannot walk in a fully upright position, being obliged to push their knees forward, just as we do if we are carrying a heavy weight on our heads.”400 The focus was on morphological profiles, appearance, and posture. The study of skulls as distinct from that of bodies, on the other hand, was more accessible and direct. First established in the 19th century, it endowed the notion of “race” with an apparently stable foundation. This concept, as yet limited, became “self-evident” in the latter half of the century, its promoters advocating the numerical assessment of cranial capacity: “The cephalic index is one of the most important factors in characterizing races,”401 insisted the Dictionnnaire des sciences anthropologiques in the late 19th century. Numerical calculations would improve understanding of the “somatological units”402 by distinguishing the various categories and their distribution. The vision of human evolution, clearly initiated by Darwinism after the 1860s, formed another decisive landmark. The history of that vision should be briefly described. According to this perspective, “racial” physiques did not remain static over time, but evolved gradually. Their shape altered and their central axis shifted, affecting the limbs and revealing the dynamics of an imperceptible move towards upright posture: the change from the “anthropoidal” to the “European” skeleton. As a result, the significance of the cephalic index became more radical. The receding forehead became a sign of “slow” development, of a “primitive” phase in human evolution. This created an even more pronounced hierarchy in the different types of skeleton, as they progressed from a “backward” state to “modernity.” Images of the skeletons became schematized in the 1880s, their presentation in a sequence serving to illustrate this process more effectively. Initially bent forward, the chest becomes upright in an imperceptible progression towards erect posture.403 Successive depictions of silhouettes reduced to the most basic jointed structures were intended to demonstrate the history of hominization. This was accompanied by a vision of the space and environment in which these transitions occurred. Human bipedalism succeeded the quadrupedal stance of animals, in a shift from life in the trees to the ground. This resulted in new attention being accorded to hypothetical gestures and activities, and

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“Skeletons of men and anthropoids,” in Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques (Ed. Alphonse Bertillon et al.), Paris, undated (ca. 1885). A classic interpretation of evolution and animal history involves the presentation of a gradual straightening of the skeleton. This was suggested in the Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques in the late 19th century. A hasty and above all inegalitarian interpretation, which brought tragic consequences, led to the belief that “contemporary” human skeletons (silhouettes) could be differentiated through their position on the evolutionary scale.

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in representations of the postures and movements associated with these respective living environments. Consequently, the whole skeletal structure was evaluated in a different manner: “Being tree-dwellers, the anthropoids exhibit all the differences that make a bipedal posture problematic, as they are obliged to lean forward when walking on the ground.”404 The bodily structure of these anthropoids, with its emphasis on the arms to the detriment of the legs, would favor hanging movements rather than walking. This would give rise to the alleged flaws and dissymmetry of certain “races,” for example those deemed closest to the great apes. The arms of “negroes” were considered to be longer than those of “whites,” their torsos narrower and their legs shorter, a structure facilitating swinging, as opposed to ambulatory movements. A graduated scale was defined: “The further one descends to the inferior races and the monkeys, the lower the position of the middle finger.”405 Profiles of different appearances based on “race” were subsequently produced. These were no longer limited to the face, but extended to the posture of the entire body. In 1868, for example, Ernst Haeckel described the physical structure of the first humanoids in the following manner: “Their stance was only semi-upright and their knees markedly bent.”406 It was therefore possible to designate a type of human silhouette with a stooping form, short legs, and dangling arms as “primitive.”

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Physical profiles were established, angles were formed, and the central axis underwent successive shifts, all of which occurred in a vast human time scale. In particular, hierarchies were installed and embedded within these bodily structures. This directed the observations of late 19th-century naturalists, with their innumerable portrayals of “races.” For example, in his monumental work on natural history of 1890, Alfred Brehm describes the “Mincopies,” a “Negrito” people of the Bay of Bengal, as having “broad shoulders,” “muscular arms and forearms,” “less fleshy thighs and legs,” and “calves positioned somewhat high,”407—signs of imperfect adaptation to walking and treading motions. At the same time, naturally, statistics did not corroborate such assertions. The “unquestionable” measurements met with resistance. Statistics, regularly reiterated at the end of the 19th century, did not prove decisive. There were few, if any, conclusions in academic quarters. Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau, the professor at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in the 1870s, stated that he lacked “precise information”408 regarding the significance of the different types of anatomy observed. Although convinced of the existence of “races,” Paul Topinard, the General Secretary of the Société d’Anthropolgie, confirmed this imprecision: “Proportions differ from one race to another, but there is no hierarchical ranking to prejudge the significance of such differences.”409 Joseph Deniker, the librarian at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, expressed this more plainly in 1900, in his major work on the “races and peoples of the world:” “Despite the accumulation of material on the differences between bodily proportions according to race, there is not a great deal to draw on.”410 No hierarchy presented itself, in spite of the extensive recourse to numerical calculations. Indeed, as previously indicated,411 by the end of the century a number of conclusions tended towards an unfavorable view of the “civilized” anatomy: “The inhabitants of our large cities present a deplorable image of inferiority.”412 Of course, this did not prevent the continuation of such beliefs, the exploitation of statistics or the use of illustrations stigmatizing “inferior races.” Prejudices were established, spread, and shared: tragically, the myth was perpetuated in illusory fashion through the use of silhouettes. In 1901, for example, the prejudice was clearly transmitted by Amédée Vignola, who claimed to describe “all women” from every continent. The “Hottentot” woman, described as belonging to “one of the most degraded races of the human species,” manifested her “disgraceful” condition through her highly unusual profile. Her bodily contours were characterized by a “specific” phenomenon: the fat accumulated in “the upper part of her pelvic region,” was seen as presenting a strange parallel with the forms of “female mandrills.”413 This was quite simply intended to confirm the existence of differences between the “primitive” and the “modern,” reflected in the silhouette itself.

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Saartjie Baartman, nicknamed the “Hottentot Venus,” an image from Frédéric Cuvier’s Histoire naturelle des mammifères, 1824–1842. According to an enduring belief, “Hottentot” women had an accumulation of fat on their buttocks (a phenomenon known as “steatopygia”), causing their contours to resemble those of “female mandrills.” Their silhouettes were therefore thought to indicate their “lower” position on the evolutionary scale.

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Jean-Louis Forain, “My child…”, in Nous, vous, eux!, Paris, 1893. In 1893, Jean-Louis Forain illustrated the notion of a “Jewish silhouette,” allegedly recognizable by its “low” place on the evolutionary scale. The fatal consequences of this racism are well known.

As an identical historical phenomenon, which has been the subject of innumerable accounts and accusations, Jewish people were represented as a symbol of disparaged “races” in the late 19th century. They figured regularly as a possible aspect of the “primitive” silhouette. The impact of their appearance was particularly strong as it was masked by “deceptive” features. Their contours were depicted in an immensely distorted fashion. Édouard Drumont, among others, summarized this standard image, stating in 1886:

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“The principal signs by which to recognize a Jew are still the famous hooked nose, blinking eyes, clenched teeth, protruding ears […] the torso very long, the feet flat, the knees round, the ankle turned outwards to an extreme degree, the moist, soft hands of the hypocrite and the traitor.”414 The torso, legs, and feet, which would prove hindrances to walking, would thus indicate some type of hidden “primitivism.” The length of the torso, among other factors, would be deemed a vestige of an ancient quadrupedal existence. This silhouette was promoted as an example. Drawings were presented in a systematized fashion, with two contrasting profiles, a practice regularly repeated in Drumont’ s book. The “honest” politician Andrieu, for example, has a dynamic expression and upright carriage, whereas Jules Ferry, a “wily” politician, is depicted with a weighty head and a potbelly, his manner implicitly suggested by his tensed hand. Jean-Louis Forain produced many such images in the 1890s, in a fanatical anti-Semitic attack. They include this print, published in Nous, vous, eux! in 1893. It shows a man, as a potential protector, approaching a dancer in the wings of the Paris Opéra with the words: “My child, I’m Levy-Kohn,” to which the young woman scathingly replies: “So I see…”415 The male figure was presented as an educative image: his nose is hooked, his head leans forward, he has short legs and a rounded stomach. The silhouette was studied in the light of its potential for discriminatory effects, which had developed into a repertoire of different appearances and categories. These could take the most extreme forms, with irrevocably tragic results in the 20th century.

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hese presentations of disparity, the consequences of which are known to all, persisted during the first half of the 20th century. Besides inducing horror, they also led to the unforgivable exhibition held in France in 1942, when the “Jewish” physique was displayed and described on the Grands Boulevards of Paris.416 In the words of Maurice Olender: “In hunting for so much ‘(self-) evidence’ some have undoubtedly ended up ‘enlightened’ and, in any case, have set the world ablaze with the countless torches that our memories endeavor to forget, by inscribing them.”417 Apart from the issue of racism, the drive to categorize bodily forms also continued during the 20th century. This was clearly demonstrated in 1956 by Nicola Pende, with his monumental work Traité de médecine biotypologie. The author cites numerous reference points, adding “the notion of solidity and of sthenia, or of weakness and asthenia”418 to already existing categories, thus providing a greater variety of possibilities. In particular, he increased the number of “typological” schools of thought, revealing both the interest and the limits of the process. For example, regarding the French schools alone, “Baronian morphology” was added to that of the “Sigaudian” and “Martinian” schools, designated according to their creators’ surnames.419 The Italian school420 comprised eighteen groups of “biotypes,” with no definitive categorization to cover fine distinctions. The classification of body types could not be too complex, short of being clearly individualized. It was in a different sphere, however, that the theme of the silhouette first underwent a renewal in the early half of the 20th century. This was the world of illustration, where a new type of profile was created, signaling a cultural change. Demands relating to form were paramount; these had been revised as a result of the Industrial Revolution, manufactured objects, and the principles of functionality. Figures became “standardized,” characters were simplified and their lines neutralized, with a view to promoting information over emotion. Communication became a tool, schematizing its messages and drawings to an extreme degree. From the early 20th century, a number of poster artists called for a new approach: “The object should be large and placed in the center of the image, which should be devoid of any pointless decorative effect.”421 Any realism in the depiction of human figures might be discarded in favor of “integral functionalism.”422 Although they remained as “silhouettes,” their role was that of a simple “object:” abbreviated in form,

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they functioned as indicators, rather than conveying sentiment. A case in point is the poster by Jack advertising “camping in Corsica” in 1938. It features purely allusive silhouettes reclining next to their tents, which are encircled by greenery.423 Herbert Matter’s poster of 1928, advertising a tailoring establishment, provides a further example. Here, the largely stylized and quasi-abstract depiction of the bellboy is primarily intended to suggest a careful, supervised handling of the garments.424 The 1930 poster by Cassandre for Savo work clothes is the clearest manifestation of this aim. It is conspicuous for its highly calculated schematic style: the face is reduced to Illustration by Jack for the Camping pêche (camping and fishing) commercial catalogue by Mestre and Blatgé, ca. 1935. Paris, Bibliothèque Forney. The realm of illustration enriched the scope of the silhouette in the early 20th century. Communication became an instrument, simplifying its messages and images to an extreme degree. The image became functional, as information was favored over expressivity. The silhouette might therefore be reduced to a vehicle of communication, a role reinforced by its linear quality. It became no more than a “sign,” limited to its form alone. These are the icons used by a consumer society to standardize its messages.

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Advertisement by Cassandre for the aperitif Dubonnet, 1935. © Mouron Cassandre.

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a circle, the angles are sharp and the lines accentuated, intensifying the impression of movement: “The geometric silhouette set against the brick background has become the image of a mechanism, a gear system.”425 Realism was minimized, so that the predominant suggestion was of efficiency alone. The Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet poster of 1934 follows exactly the same formula. One of Cassandre’s most famous works, it develops as a three-part story, featuring a character “drinking,” “tasting,” and “refilling.” There is no realism of form here: the focus is purely on the sequence of the images and their color. As he drinks, the “little man” becomes “filled with black,” while the letters of the accompanying words, from Dubo to Dubonnet, “fill up to match.”426 A semi-abstract silhouette, the character’s sole function is to illustrate the satisfaction of imbibing the liquid. The position of the pupil in the white-colored eye accentuates the economy of the approach: in the first image, it is focused on the glass, indicating desire, and subsequently turns upwards to suggest pleasure. These characters, which reflect the importance of information over expressivity, have a particular significance: since the interwar period, they have provided an indication of one potential future for the silhouette in our contemporary world. They were its starting point: icons of this type are used by a society based on communication to standardize its messages. They are the minute images transformed into “gestures” used for the management of urban spaces; figures transformed into signals, they are the signs “digitizing” our screens, the symbols used to standardize images, and the forms animating advertisements. Today, our lives are ordered by this multitude of extremely simple signs given bodily shape. They have such a ubiquitous presence that this seems “natural.” Their origins, however, comprise several factors: the rise of a functionalist culture, the growing need for increased communications, and the equally growing necessity to identify and master them. The silhouette was relevant here. It extended, in a more radical form, a dynamic that had been set in motion by the press image and its increasingly abbreviated content. Its focus is on informative utility. It is now solely functional: pure efficiency removed from the expressive values that it might otherwise have. This dramatic change occurred only in relation to signs, which indicates the diversity of the silhouette and its forms today. The aesthetic and “corporal” domain inevitably associated with the silhouette was naturally completely different. It was likewise marked by transformations in illustration during the early half of the 20th century. A number of posters, far from conveying information alone, focused on intensifying sensation. They manifested the quest to draw and “seize” the gaze, pursuing the process that late 19th-century posters had initiated. Niklaus Stoecklin, for example, was certainly aiming to induce “feeling” in his pharmaceutical advertising poster of 1937.427 Here, he limits his image to

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Niklaus Stoecklin, Gaba gegen Husten! 1927. New York, Museum of Modern Art. In the world of communication, silhouettes based primarily on shape can also have expressive power. The depiction of the exaggeratedly extended neck and the eager face taking a Galba throat lozenge is the clearest example of this.

the blue-shaded silhouette of a face whose neck is extended to an extreme degree in order to swallow a throat lozenge. Stoecklin seeks to create an impression, bringing sensitivity into play, and emphasizing the corporal aspect of the image. He also combines the techniques of abstract and expressionist art, enabling him to convey the impact of a quasi-psychological “shock” more effectively, through form alone. The stretched, disproportionate lines have a touching quality. The Expressionist movement explored the realm of sensitivity and emotional effect in exactly the same way at the dawn of the 20th century. In The Old Guitarist by Picasso, for instance, the drooping, almost “detached” neck of the old man suggests both exhaustion and concentration.428 Further examples are the emaciated silhouettes of the Mexicans depicted by José Clemente Orozco, their skeletal figures recalling

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T h e R ea l m s of E x pression and I nfor m ation

the sufferings of the revolutionary period.429 The 20th century capitalized on the potential offered by silhouettes to an unprecedented extent; they were even viewed from a “psychoanalytical” perspective. At the same time, these slender linear profiles displayed greater diversity of form than ever before. At all events, the reference to concision of line and of physical contours that influences our daily existence has imbued the word “silhouette” with huge significance. It is in this context that the term has taken on all its meaning, so that it has become a norm, a constant and compulsory benchmark. It is in this context, too, that through the dynamics of a society based on communication, leisure, and consumption, the dedication to achieving “pure” anatomical contours is greater than ever before. And finally, it is in this context that the lines of the body have been decisively established as the foremost element of the culture of appearance. As distinct from the experiments with form which revitalized the functional aspect of depiction, and its use in countless artificial signs, the word “silhouette” has come to symbolize the physique in its strictest sense. In this way, it has had the greatest impact on behavioral models, and is a source of largely unsuspected complexity.

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B E T W E E N C U RV E S AND MUSCLES

W

hen Marie Claire launched its inaugural issue in France in 1937 with a eulogy to the silhouette, the magazine qualified the recent guidelines governing female appearance: “The new silhouette is a sculptural form, a vision as pure as that of a Greek statue.”430 Although the cultural assertions of the “flapper” era had been established, curved contours now reclaimed their “rights” as the focus of attention. “What is important now is a sense of volume, the penchant for a molded figure and an understanding of a perfect, flawless anatomy.”431 The hips and bust were more curvaceous, whereas the waist had to remain svelte, “prettily slender and shapely.”432 The vital factor here was the statuesque figure. As waists became increasingly slim, “the volume of the hips and bust are accentuated as if in contrast.”433 From the 1930s, indeed, fashion introduced a “new silhouette” with each new season. A superficial pronouncement, naturally, but above and beyond the bland rhetoric of advertising, a new female form established itself for years to come. It was characterized by an emphatically slim waist and a markedly curved bust and hips, producing a “stem-like” effect far removed from any suggestion of the now forgotten 19th century “S-bend” figure. One feature made a reappearance: “The fashion is no longer for flat chests.”434 This is best demonstrated by Horst’s photos for Vogue in the late 1930s, which were often taken against the light to accentuate the shaded silhouette and the sought-after contours.435 It is also evident in posters: the bathing beauty illustrated by Robert Falcucci to promote Juan-les-Pins in 1937436 has a more “sculptural” form than her very slender counterpart drawn by JeanGabriel Domergue in an advertising poster for Nice in 1935.437 Not that the tubular figure was consigned to oblivion. The vogue for minimizing the hips unquestionably played a major role in the break with the past and in female assertiveness, enabling women to pursue work and leisure activities with an unprecedented freedom. On the other hand, figures gradually became more shapely, with the appearance of a new type of curve. This took the form of a “rediscovery” of traditional feminine contours, although the figure was now characterized by a new emphasis on both slenderness and an upright posture. “Straightness” of form was more important than ever. It was promoted by Gil Elvgren, with his long-legged “pinups” and their almost identical curves between 1937 and the mid-1950s.438 The same model was used to advertise

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Poster by Robert Falcucci printed in Paris, “Juan-les-Pins, Antibes,” 1937. Through leisure activities, exposure of the body became a familiar concept in the mid-20th century. Moreover, the anatomy became increasingly evident beneath the clothing. Garments echoed the “hidden” form, molding themselves to the figure. The word “silhouette” explicitly merged the unclothed and clothed body.

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the clinging swimsuits by Emo, Reard, and Trois Quartiers.439 It was likewise promoted by Marie Claire in its first issues of 1937, when the emphasis became an order: “It is time to improve your silhouette.”440 This doctrine was particularly categorical as the mode for close-fitting fabrics had decisively taken hold: “Garments, made of material as malleable as clay, are molded to the contours of the body.”441 The tightly clinging dresses worn by Hollywood actresses such as Joan Crawford, Jeanette MacDonald, Jean Harlow, and Carole Lombard conclusively established the fashion, which became the western model of the late 1930s.442 One of the original aspects of the female silhouette in the 1930s, in addition to a more sinuous appearance, was its vivacious quality. This was unquestionably due to the drive for “emancipation,” which translated into an almost muscular depiction. Beach scenes, for instance, which had long been composed of static poses, now portrayed energetic activities such as ball games or high diving. An example of this is Dubout’s poster of 1935, with its streamlined, soaring figure of a young woman diving in Cap d’Antibes:443 she is “an arrow, clear-cut above the horizon.”444 It contains an additional, significant feature, as the subject is being observed by seated men, forming a clearly underlined comparison. Although certainly spectators, they have a visual appeal that fits with the active nature of the scene. Images of leisure pursuits contained innumerable references to sailing, golf, skating, skiing, and tennis. These include the supple, gracefully twisting female figure shown throwing a ball in the air with her full force in Gino Boccasile’s poster of 1930.445 The female silhouette changed in its significance. Its contours were revitalized and its appearance became tauter. Depictions of movement now symbolized activity. It should be emphasized, however, that these changes occurring in the 1930s did not lead to any suggestion of an androgynous look. The treatment of the masculine form, for example, remained clearly specific. One body shape, now more firmly established than previously, was to dominate in the 1950s. It was characterized by a unique emphasis on “stature” and the “powerful” breadth of the upper body. The round-chested dandy 446 had given way to the athletic male with his strapping shoulders. Muscles, rather than the lung area, now took center stage, as rounded forms were supplanted by broad physiques. A dictum was imposed, reinforced by the growing prominence of the “sporty” prototype: “A normal man is an athlete.”447 This is confirmed by texts that focus the attention on “bulging” shoulders:448 “Of all the muscles in the body, the development of the deltoid is the most important for achieving a sculpted physique.”449 It is also demonstrated by advertising images, with their obvious use of linear outlines and broad torsos. Examples include Niklaus Stoecklin’s 1934 poster for a Zurich tailoring establishment, which shows the back view of a black silhouette with oversized

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PLM tourist poster promoting the Côte d’Azur: “Nice-Beuil, winter sports on the Côte d’Azur, two hours by car, twenty minutes by plane.” Illustration by Jean-Gabriel Domergue, 1935. Galdoc Collection.

B etween C ur v es and Musc l es

Gino Boccasile, “San Remo Torneo internazionale 17–22 Marzo 1930.” Poster promoting the San Remo tennis tournament, 1930. In the 1930s, the female form acquired a decisively supple quality. The silhouettestyle outline reflected this perfectly. Its fluid lines suggest the new dynamic associating women with activity.

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shoulders,450 and the well-built male figures, their muscles revealed by sleeveless vests, featuring in advertise­ ments for Jockey underwear during the 1950s.451 A specific masculine “type” was established, and remained in favor for several decades. The torsos were as narrow as the shoulders were wide: examples of this silhouette include that of the aristocratic swordsman played by Douglas Fairbanks in The Prisoner of Zenda,452 and Johnny Weissmuller’s sculpted chest in his innumerable roles as Tarzan.453 The “American” build was predominant in images of this type, such as the photograph of Elvis Presley wearing swimming trunks in 1961. The pose here is overtly commanding, the size of the deltoid muscles presenting a contrast with the much narrower waist454 to create an almost caricatural effect. This type of posture may well have played a part in counteracting the gradual “liberation” of women with an artificially “virile,” even tensed, male physique.

Elvis Presley in the Norman Taurog film, Blue Hawaii, 1961. The exposure of the male body in the mid century emphasized broad shoulders, with the trapezius muscle as a defining factor of the physique. Did this represent a tensed reserve of force following the appearance of the newly energized, assertive female?

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B etween C ur v es and Musc l es

T H E E M E R G E N C E O F P S YC H O L O G Y: T H E DAW N O F A C U LT ?

I

n a yet more original development, work on one’s silhouette now ventured into the realm of psychological exploration. From the late 1930s, the advice given involved mental images. All ideal models would have their “inner” equivalents. Each individual would forge an ideal personal image as a second silhouette, and this was to guide their objectives. The idea was “to create one’s perfect physique through thought,”455 to work on an “imaginary embodiment,”456 and to establish a figure constructed through “reasoning and meditation”457 “in one’s head.” There was a context to this theme, as it coincided with the development of new psychological territory in contemporary society. This involved an emphasis on selfmastery and referred to a supposedly widespread “struggle for life” requiring concentration, resolution, and personal drive. It was necessary to adopt a mindset that would give one an “unexpected power.”458 This vision is unquestionably based on willpower, entailing the improvement of one’s appearance “through the influence of suggestion.”459 The endeavor centered on “conceiving” a highly specific picture of the ideal silhouette, galvanizing one’s personal motivation and visualizing “the exterior changes one wishes to effect.”460 During the major rise in psychological preoccupations that occurred during the 20th century, the silhouette was enriched by this personal “double” deemed indispensable for its improvement. This was an individualized vision involving a purely “cerebral” task to be undertaken by one and all: defining and mastering a uniquely personal mental space. Inevitably, the silhouette became “internalized.” This type of individualization was also evident through the very manner in which the ideal models were proposed. Categories, classifications, and varieties were established, demonstrating the unique characteristics of each bodily profile. This was reflected in the advice given: “It would be a mistake to choose an ideal diametrically opposed to one’s muscular type.”461 Or again: “There is no standard measurement.”462 Possible “choices” presented themselves: “Are you short, stocky, solidly built […] Or are you, on the other hand, lean and slim […] Or are your measurements somewhere in the middle?”463 Each case would have its own “personalized” possible ideal. Individualized directives were formulated: an ideal corresponding to one’s “structure”464 should be maintained “in the sphere of consciousness.” Hence, the contrasting forms presented in women’s magazines of the 1930s and the

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Evening dress in black crêpe, photograph from the magazine Exelsior Modes, winter 1937–1938. The female figure in the 1930s presented a different incarnation of narrower lines. Contours were streamlined, breasts were deemphasized, and an image of liberated slenderness prevailed. The look that developed in this way centered on mobility and activity, as well as elegance. The notion of the silhouette drew all its significance from this “simplified” model.

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T h e E m er g ence of P s y c h o l o g y : T h e D awn of a C u l t ?

Advertisement for Plastiform, a slimming cream for local application, 1944. The 20th century witnessed an unprecedented personalized approach to the silhouette and its contours. It was “shaped” and “sculpted,” a fitting metaphor. Previously, the challenge for silhouette artists had been to display finesse of line: now the challenge for individuals on the social stage was to display the finesse of their bodies.

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awareness of a variety of bodily profiles: “Bust too long” […] Shoulders too broad […] Poorly defined waist.”465 Hence, too, the emphasis on every individual finding “the identifying signs corresponding to their own silhouette.”466 Presentations of a variety of different types from which readers had to learn to select the model best suited to them also formed part of these developments. Subsequently, what can only be described as a semi-contradiction was established, coinciding with efforts already being expended on improving the silhouette. It involved being able to identify with the only coveted model, while at the same time limiting oneself to focusing on one’s own personal features. This is obviously a precarious prospect, and one where the “collective” norm tends to impose itself as an emphatic priority—more so, indeed, with those who claim to challenge it. Josette Lyon, for example, rejects all categorical notions of female beauty in her highly detailed publication of 1954, yet she provides a great many reference points based on a generic model: “Your waist measurement should be double that of your neck […] the diameter of your hips should be equal to the length of your head multiplied by two.”467 And, although in his work of 1955 Charles Mayer emphasizes the possibility of “turning one’s own body to good account,”468 he devotes a lengthy chapter to the “human body region by region,” revealing that norms cannot be selected: “The stomach determines the waist, the waist determines the silhouette.”469 The collective tenets were undeniably dominant. This use of numbers increased markedly from the 1930s onwards: “All the women’s magazines regularly publish charts.”470 These provided the numerical indicators intended as guidelines for the silhouette. Endlessly modified and reiterated, they were the principal benchmarks. This practice was first suggested by Adolphe Quetelet as part of his analyses of statistics carried out in the mid-19th century.471 Their existence had remained buried in scholarly criteria. Moreover, their focal point was public health rather than bodily aesthetics. They did, however, provide indications for body shape based on other factors such as weight. It was revealed that a comparison between waist measurement and weight could serve as a guide, with the latter ideally being equal in kilos to the number of centimeters of the subject’s height that exceeded one meter. An individual measuring 1.6 m tall should therefore weigh 60 kg. The sudden adoption of these criteria by magazines and beauty manuals in the mid century was significant, as it reflected a major increase in dedication to one’s silhouette, especially since the measurements themselves became more stringent. Statistics and correlations tightened, as thresholds gradually became more challenging. The ideal weight was soon no longer only equivalent to the number of centimeters of the subject’s height exceeding one meter: it was now reduced from 60 kg to 55 or 57 kg for a height of 1.6 m, as suggested in

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La Coiffure et ses modes in 1930.472 Indeed, the process of lowering the weight threshold accelerated over the following ten years. Year

Weight in kilos

January 1929

60

April 1932

54

August 1932

53–52

May 1939

51.50

Weights advised by Votre beauté for a woman 1.6 m tall.473

Measurements for the “vital statistics” underwent the same tightening process. 1933

1938

1939

(Votre beauté)

(Marie Claire)

(Votre beauté)

Bust 83

Bust 85

Bust 81

Hips 87

Hips 85

Hips 75

Waist 65

Waist 60 The ideal silhouette for a woman 1.6 m

Waist 58 tall.474

The highly precise indications in these specific examples serve to confirm that, as figures became slimmer during this period, they were consequently expected to become more shapely. Corpulence gave way to curves. This was entirely due to the markedly reduced waistline. This accumulation of numbers is primarily significant as the reflection of an increasingly huge commitment to perfecting the silhouette and its contours. It confirms the “perpetually renewed cult of the body”475 described by Zola in Au Bonheur des dames in 1883: the symbolic term is certainly the most fitting way to describe this heightened interest. In an additional development, individual relationships with the self underwent a further shift during the first half of the 20th century. The attention focused on the anatomy was subsequently directed to clothing. The criteria governing this commitment were varied, involving waistline, shape, height, and weight.

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above

“A simple average,” in Beauté-service, pour rester belle ou le devenir, by Josette Lyon, Monaco, Éditions du Rocher, 1954. opposite

“Measurement sheet” in Santé et beauté plastique by Marcel Rouet, Paris, Éditions J. Oliven, 1937. The calculation of measurements for aesthetic purposes became a standard feature of beauty magazines and publications in the late 1930s. One’s shape was indicated by numbers, and required careful monitoring. The formulae became simpler, resulting in today’s BMI: the indication given by the body mass divided by the square of the body height indicating the degree of thinness or obesity. There were specific measurements, averages, and proportions governing the care of the figure, its curves, and outlines.

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5

THE CONTEMPOR ARY SILHOUETTE

RADICAL CHANGES IN THE FIGURE

A

Page 148 Brigitte Bardot in 1959, promotional poster for Julien Duvivier’s film La Femme et le Pantin, 1959. Brigitte Bardot embodied the conclusive triumph of the modern female silhouette: markedly “freer” gestures, longer legs, supple hips, cinched waist, and prominent bust.

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s these developments continued, the words associated with them became more expressive. “Cult,” adopted by Zola in 1883, gave way to “obsession,” which was used in the Encyclopédie Beauté Bien-être in 1964. This was an eloquent means of indicating an increasingly emphatic dedication. “This word ‘obsession’ does not simply correspond to a fashion, it represents an irreversible trend based on dietetics, which is rapidly altering the silhouettes of present and future generations, together with aesthetic and dietary factors.”476 In a recent text, Isabelle Sorente replaces the word “obsession” with “fascination.” This relates particularly to the diets undertaken to preserve the figure: “Diets are fascinating.”477 They are both galvanizing and agonizing. Over and above the commonplace nature of their existence, they taint pleasure and thwart satisfaction. Their role seems akin to that of an “entrance exam,”478 with its system of counting and calculation. This would explain the increasingly prevalent arguments qualifying the silhouette as a “lethal”479 phenomenon, or simply a “machine” to create “victims.”480 Commentaries on the status quo, with their varying degrees of acerbity, have little actual importance. Over a long period of time, a large amount of satires have been directed “against fashion,”481 “against the extravagance of women,”482 and “against the manners and modes of mankind.”483 There have been countless diatribes against La mode qui court et les singularités d’icelle484 (“Current fashion and its peculiarities”), as well as criticism of every kind leveled at hairstyles, materials, lace, beards, hoods, parasols, and “requisite” looks and postures. Reducing an aesthetic exercise to an “unreasonable constraint” unleashes its own interminable succession of questions and caustic remarks. At first sight, this is perfectly understandable: choices regarding physical appearance always seem the most arbitrary and impulsedriven of all. However, it is worth revisiting this particular challenge. The theme of slimming in contemporary life provides the best example. It has a clear significance, being specifically and uniquely based on the increasingly technological character of early 20th century society.485 This significance has increased. More so than ever before, it concerns both men and women. It is no longer simply a matter of idealizing a lithe or slender body, but of identifying a culture. This was a response to a world of efficiency, mobility, spontaneity, and the intensely fluid nature of life today. It is “a world of

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screens, keyboards, and automatons, where everything is expected to deliver an enhanced performance in real time.”486 It is based on the principle of lightness, and embodies a vision: an increasingly desirable combination in the world of immediacy. One aim predominates: to “weigh” less is to adjust, to adapt, and to keep pace with the universally lauded principle of speed. This explains the imperative, as only firm, light bodies can meet the challenge. This was a major issue, and perhaps particularly so for women, as it implied the need to distance themselves decisively from tradition, minimizing any indication too obviously related to the breasts, and eradicating overly pronounced curves. Again, this was not intended to produce an androgynous look, but involved a relative reduction of the contours, with an emphasis on linearity and the predominance of honed angles. Defined by words and confirmed by images, this slimness was displayed, assessed, and appraised. The terms used include metaphors and deliberate repetition to suggest a process of lightening and streamlining: “pencil thin,”487 “feather light,”488 “line of sight”489 (“ligne” meaning “figure” in French, therefore an obvious pun), and “every time is slimming time.”490 Images played their part too, showing thinner waists and longer legs that created a shift in bodily proportions. The theme of the silhouette was now the subject of unprecedented attention. The emphasis was on “economizing” its contours:

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above left

Multi-stripe dress, National Media Museum, Daily Herald Archive, 1961. The modern female silhouette was clearly made for dynamism and activity. Slender figures were preferred and vertical stripes played their part, being seen as emphasizing length and height. above right

Male fashion, National Media Museum, Daily Herald Archive, 1961. A trim form was just as requisite for the male silhouette, which is further emphasized here by the vertical stripes. The world of speed and instant response was reflected in a slim and flexible physique.

R adica l C h an g es in t h e F i g ure

“subtract kilos, always subtract.”491 The ideal was “less is best”492 or, quite simply, economy of line. This generated an increasing number of images featuring silhouetted figures, their clear-cut outlines standing out against a light background. This was the form chosen by the Encyclopédie Beauté Bien-être in 1964. Its image of a silhouette appears particularly delicate, as its bister tone and pastel colored background lend it a distant, almost unreal air.493 The same style was selected to advertise Givenchy and Stella perfumes, as well as the slimming cream Phytomer, as featured in the 9 May, 2005 issue of the French Elle magazine. It was likewise used, with a more distinct black outline, in the March 2012 issue of Votre beauté to promote Sisley’s PhytoSvelt cream, deemed a “perfector [sic] of silhouettes.” The forms are taut and the lines firm. L’Oréal’s “incredible silhouette”494 takes the same tones and inverts them, but conveys exactly the same message, its infinitely slender forms set against a black background. These innovations were accentuated by an additional original element. This developed and reinforced a phenomenon that had emerged with the image of the flapper. It embodied a “force” and reflected the world of movement, of a shared public domain and working life. This was also a world punctuated by the rhythms of contemporary culture, and had a dual register, with its play on both eroticization and functionality. Bodies were more responsive and more active, as the slim figure was now a conclusive indication of female “vitality.” These formulae constantly reappeared as a leitmotiv in beauty magazines. There was the “more active slenderness” promised by Biba,495 the advice “specifically for a firm figure” promised by Maxi,496 the assurance of “boosting your potential” given by Prima,497 the summons to “go on the attack for your silhouette” issued by Maxi,498 and finally, the “seventyfour pages to get you feeling fresh, energized, and sexy” offered by the French edition of Elle magazine on the cover of its issue for May 2005. Photos advertising clothes or products also played their part, with their images of silhouettes transforming the most intensive movements into “natural”499 activity. This also had the effect of reshaping the recommended physique. While this was certainly more streamlined, honed, and taut, shoulders were broader, their contours straighter and more defined than ever before. This was the figure suggested by Phyto-Svelt in that March 2012 issue of Votre beauté, where subtly slimmed-down hips were echoed by equally finely shaped shoulder line.500 A new, differently sculpted “build” was established. Female slenderness was therefore not simply a seductive trait; it was a “sign” of self-assurance and initiative, an expression of ease and independence. There are, indeed, two types of slimness. One involves the traditional “tightening” of the contours and demonstrates the requisite combination of softness and fragility: the other is the modern “streamlined” look, with its own requisite combination of assertiveness and a toned physique.

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THE CHALLENGE OF IDENTIT Y

I

t is impossible to ignore the striking impact of these endeavors, their huge influence on behavior, and the countless amounts of knowledge, demands, and varied practices they generate. The presence of diets, for instance, with their presumed effect on the silhouette, has become commonplace, along with references to the Body Mass Index, or BMI. Tables indicating degrees of slenderness or heaviness are to be found in every magazine. The theme of honing one’s figure is now all-pervasive. The pressures it exerts are more complex than the issue of taste alone or of the assertion of women, although this is certainly decisive. Such tensions reveal the extent to which the status of the body itself has primarily changed. This relates in particular to the issue of appearance, the presentation of the self, and the overriding significance it has assumed. For instance, the infiltration of the screen into every aspect of our daily lives has radically altered references to physicality. It has transformed the image into the expression of an attitude based on the prime importance of visibility. There is a huge obligation, imposed as an ideal form of behavior, to “be seen,” and in particular to “be noticed.”501 The challenge is to present a thoroughly appraised, carefully thought out and polished appearance. Television has gradually exerted a hold,502 as Bourdieu states in his own particular way. Moreover, culture “has become increasingly mediagenic,”503 broadcasting references and truths. It therefore comes as no surprise that “ordinary people” should put the most humdrum episodes from their daily lives on the Internet, as if these were a major and continual source of interest. It is equally unsurprising that celebrities should assess their worth “quantatively,” by the dissemination of their image, their exposure in magazines, and their online presence. Joel Birman even suggests that these changes have attained the realm of thought, resulting in a different way of expressing the sense of existence: “I am seen, therefore I am.”504 While this is undeniably a generalization, the conclusion is nonetheless revealing: “it is the situation of being seen and one’s tangible, bodily presence viewed by others which determine the experience and the certainty of existing.”505 On a deeper level, this primary significance accorded to the body is more marked in societies based on individualism. The existence of individuals is defined by how they present themselves, how they behave, and the immediate visual impression they create, strictly determined by appearance. In this way,

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Dior spring/summer prêt-àporter collection, 2012. Photo: Karl Lagerfeld. Among the many contemporary types of male physique, the favored model emphasizes an increasingly streamlined effect in appearance and bearing. Moreover, male and female physiques now display characteristics shared in almost equal measure between the sexes. Male, as well as female, models are therefore a familiar sight. They present a magnetic image in their poses, forming elegantly honed “silhouettes.” Curiously, the use of shadow can contribute to the diversity of the effects created in this way.

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Chanel spring/summer prêt-àporter collection, 2012, photo: Karl Lagerfeld. The body has become a site of identity, to a hitherto unprecedented degree. It is now required to “reveal” a person, almost in their entirety, and is the first manifestation of an individual. This is a major phenomenon in an individualistic society where, for the first time, individuals have only themselves to “express.” Hence the endless efforts dedicated to revealing one’s unique nature in “physical” form. The silhouette has become increasingly valued as the favored “site” of the self.

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the fictional image of a “self-generated” individual is established, having no forebears or background and being solely “confined” to a material presence. This is confirmed by the history of dress. There has been a shift from a still recent culture where textures and forms provided a variety of indications relating to groups and environments, to a highly contemporary culture where personal tastes and originality have asserted their importance. For a long time, appearance and clothing depended on one’s profession, geographical location, and community, but they have now ceased to be governed by institutions. The social “theater” is no longer the place where one wore the signs of one’s personal background proudly, and sometimes also passively. Individuals alone are now responsible for their behavior and their “images.” This explains the importance of that physical presence, its significance as a primary expression of identity. It also explains the eminently personalized aspect of the beauty advice issued from the 1960s onwards, as the body becomes the favored means of expressing one’s individuality. The magazines and beauty manuals of the 1960s promised to “guide you in the quest to find your personality,”506 and to “find the look which will celebrate your personality,”507 suggesting hairstyles, lipsticks, body care, and skin tones as “reflections of [one’s] personality.”508 The silhouette could only gain in prominence as a theme and focal point. Hence the motley yet highly orchestrated mix of styles featured in a recent Dictionnaire du look,509 each term relating to a specific type of appearance treated as distinct group: “Arty,” “Bear,” “Bimbo,” “Butch,” “Geek,” “Gothic Lolita,” “Offbeat,” “Metalhead,” “Neo Dandy,” “Nerd,” “No Look,” and so on. There are so many categories that they ultimately lead to individualization rather than classification. This gives rise to additional questions, which further intensify the complex nature of the body. Central to our identity, it is also a site of conception, a semi-psychological phenomenon. It is one of the “matrices” that form the self, initiating and punctuating our personal history. Inevitably, it also reflects a past, echoing traumas, anxieties, “messages,” and forgotten events. These influence the various personal aspects of the body, such as the appearance favored by each individual and their highly personalized contours. In other words, this is a “subconscious image of a body fashioned by the words one hears.”510 While these are certainly subjective beliefs, the new forms of identity have lent them the power of conviction. Magazines have built a doctrine around them, according to which “bodily pains or stiffness” reveal “our secrets”511 and “excess weight” is indicative of “our stress,”512 while “blockages” reflect our “previous problems.” An additional element is the “correlation” increasingly emphasized in today’s magazines: “My massage therapist told me that bodily tensions are the same as spiritual ones.”513 The particular manner in which “our” contours514 fill out, for example, would be interpreted in largely psychological terms. It would trace a personal journey,

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a history, giving rise to countless simplistic explanations, such as recognition of malaise: “I’ve realized that my lack of control around food comes from being neglected as a child.”515 Another might involve a recognition of reactive behavior: “My constant snacking […] was a way of getting revenge for his infidelity.”516 The belief also permeated literature: “My mother’s belly was an indictment of our repellent condition as mammals, my swelling stomach denounced our status as omnivores, which we share with pigs […]. In the end, I worked on my abdominals.”517 The idea is quite simply that an individual’s personal history and emotions impact upon their bodily forms and contours. The body unquestionably provides a domain for the imagination. In this way, the silhouette can shape it into the most individualized forms.

Photograph from the Beyond Collection, 2009. As bodily lines have become longer, a new energy has also been activated. Movements are visible and full of amplitude. The female figure has been transformed. The anatomy, glimpsed through the clothing, reveals a refined and animated silhouette. Activity is important, and has been established as an instantly visible and major reference point, together with a toned body. Slenderness and vivacity are the dominant qualities, even in images that minimize the significance of the face.

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THE SILHOUET TE: THE M A STERY AND WEAKNESS OF THE BODY

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he highly personalized approach to bodily contours could veer towards a promotion of individuality. The impact of this concept is even greater in today’s individualistic societies. The psychological aspect of the silhouette has been developed by an additional demand: this involves an awareness of tensions, the “recognition” of a deeply personal history, and the obliteration of upsetting traumas. It has given rise to a new attitude, advocating personal scrutiny, “soul-searching,” and devoting time to a greater understanding of the self. It is important to “listen” specifically to one’s body: “By learning to listen to yourself you will learn how to change.”518 This, in particular, explains the call for more relaxed attitudes and a more “open” appearance. All stiffness is to be systematically combatted, and previous physical exercises, especially those of the early 20th century, designed to inflate the chest and extend the small of the back,519 have been abandoned. It is now no longer simply a matter of creating a mental image of the “ideal silhouette,” the psychological approach advised in the 1930s.520 Today’s psychological credo tends to suggest that the body’s highly individual “organic knots” are landmarks left by the “memory.” Uncomfortable physical tensions are a warning sign, and must firstly be alleviated as a reassuring measure. The silhouette is to be improved through “relaxation techniques,”521 choosing “ideal places to unwind,”522 and adopting a “laid-back attitude.”523 These would produce specific results: “Little by little, all the tensions were eased.”524 This is the “aim” suggested by health resorts, thalassotherapy sessions, “sensory” approaches, and the new treatment centers that have replaced the old thermal spas. “You really do get cleansed. Body and mind. No toxins, no stress, no blockage.”525 The cover of GQ magazine for April 2012 sums up this prospect in a few words: “How to be cool, fun, and stylish.”526 This has ultimately brought about an imperceptible transformation in physical appearance: today’s look is supposed to combine a “relaxed” air with vivacity, adaptability, and confidence. Initiative and independence seem to have gained still more importance through this new theme. It extended to the Petits Pratiques Hachette527, which offered an increased number of options in its mass-market series: “A Style For You,” “A Look For You,” “Make-Up For You,” “A Hairstyle For You,” and “Exercises For You.” The principle was based on “a specific style adapted to

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each personality,” as promised by the logo for the series. Now, more than ever, this was a personal concern. Above all, it changed the very definition of aesthetic appeal: “Beauty is something that emanates from the individual, it is in their personality, their body language, their essential manner.”528 This extreme personalization has not only led to an apparent fragmentation of aesthetic criteria. Importantly, it has also given an impact, and even a new depth, to bodily attributes: “Regaining something of one’s original worth, starting with one’s appearance.”529 This inevitably set the challenge of producing an “entire,” “physical” translation of the individual self. The change is so marked that the standard model is sometimes presented with a studied nuance: “Me—only better. How to get the body you want with the body you have”530 announced Votre beauté on the cover of its issue for March 2012. Even more apposite is the headline of the French edition of Marie Claire’s for May 2012: “Let’s love our bodies as they are.”531 Now, for example, the subject of slenderness is not accompanied by an abstract injunction, but instead by a suggestion of “adaptability.” Figures are seen as adjustable: “What we want is a body that suits us, a balanced silhouette.”532 Slimming products are “targeted,”533 composed to correspond to individual skin textures. They are applied in various areas according to individual figures. At times the norm itself reduces the obligation to be slim. A number of magazines do not hesitate to castigate “excessive” thinness: “Let’s celebrate fuller figures”534 was the proud announcement in an issue of Femina in March 2006. Ease and freedom are deemed just as important, if not more so, than a pencil-thin shape. This explains the success of a film like Mathieu Amalric’s On Tour, with its curvaceous, exuberant dancers; here, generous figures, voluptuousness, tension, and energy are all combined with finely judged movements and effects. The charm of these dancers stems from a disconcerting and almost hidden intensity, which transcends the visible world, transforming their bodies into an explosion of vitality: this force is instantly evident, seductive, and unexpected. The “success” of these images and of the magazines that made way for curvy figures, already shows that the norm is subject to a “game,” albeit limited, making it less implacable than it might appear. The magazines’ circulation and the evident approval the images attract also indicate that they are part of a widely shared culture, with a highly contemporary predilection for speed, efficiency, and lightness,

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Image from Mathieu Amalric’s film On Tour with Linda Marraccini, 2009. An individualistic society also has the capacity to overturn established canons on occasion. Highly personalized expression has its own significance. The film On Tour, for example, featured women whose bodies were both “rounded” and attractive. Their generously curved, seductive figures were presented with conviction. They danced and swayed, combining lightness with strength, grace with assurance. Their silhouettes displayed a clearly cultivated fluidity. Yet, although the dancers in On Tour have well-developed figures, they are not obese: their contours are rounded but firm. The boundaries may have shifted, but they have not been abolished. The principle of being “outside the norm” is never established in an unambiguous fashion.

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which is so universal nowadays that it has become implicit. These are the criteria that now determine appearance, so that rather than being arbitrary and “disturbing,” the signs that shape it are understandable and significant. The fact remains that the silhouette is governed by a norm, and that this is inescapable. It even presents itself in the form of an “idealized” confirmation of the silhouette as a theme. In this way, it necessitates complex and persistent work rather than rest and relaxation, constraint rather than ease. This unavoidable obstacle actually plays a decisive role in setting a comparison between the two traditional aspects of the appearance, one markedly individual, the other markedly collective. In fact, it connects the two, as individualization has now clearly become “compulsory.” At a deeper level, however, norms are crucial. As well as shaping social issues, they also present a test, a challenge to overcome, a sign to “display,” and an “embodiment” to achieve before one is accepted into a group. This certainly makes it more difficult to be unaware of them or to disregard them. This gives rise to an infinitely more complex problem: that of the irredeemable distance between the reality of one’s body and the desire for its perfection, which may establish a rift. Indeed, it appears that an individual’s appearance can never correspond, point by point, to the most idealized version of the collective norm. There is an insurmountable disparity between reality and perfection. This impression is unquestionably intensified when, as is the case nowadays, the body has become a major and immediate manifestation of the individual. Yet physical appearance, and in this instance the silhouette, now conforms to meaningful rather than arbitrary criteria. And, rather than indicating torture or tragedy, it casts light on both the group and the individual.

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t is impossible to understand the theme of the silhouette without recalling the context in which it appeared. It emerged from the desire to create unique profiles with the greatest possible accuracy, and from the aim to record the huge variety of physiognomies, their characteristics and distinctive differences in the late 18th century. The silhouette is, first and foremost, a “conquest,” affording access to the unique. It was also an innovatory graphic process, with its black shadow producing greater clarity of contour. It created a genre, characterized by a dark form outlined against a white background. The silhouette essentially reflects the challenge of “exactitude.” The figures are monochrome yet lifelike, their lines simple yet concise, their precision all the greater for the deliberate sharpness of their contours. It is not surprising, therefore, that the process should have become a practice: an art of portraiture with its own instruments, its linear formulae, and its rituals. It flourished in France, England, and Germany in the very early 19th century, before being supplanted by the appearance of the daguerreotype and photography. The fashion for the silhouette gave rise to the profession of “silhouette artist.” These practitioners set up shops in the early 19th century, selling rapidly executed portraits. Their clients framed and displayed these fragile pieces of paper, which have become documents of great rarity. A highly individualized portrait art invented during the late 18th century, the process of silhouetting spread, gained admirers, and developed a market. It was, quite simply, a challenge, based on resemblance. This involved using an outline alone to recreate a profile devoid of trivial detail, which would embody an expression as well as an identity. As a result of its success and its apparent simplicity, the procedure developed. Adept silhouette artists were soon executing full-length portraits rather than limiting themselves to facial profiles. These black figures displayed a variety of bodily structures, appearances, and types: for the first time, monochrome shadows were depicted with genuine physical “personalities.” Profiles were suddenly differentiated according to “structural” criteria, showing varied types of correlation between the limbs and a coordinated mass of contours. Silhouette artists generated vast quantities of different outlines, appearances, and postures. The success of these profiles was given further impetus through an additional context. This was the interest shown by early 19th-century

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Cover of the magazine Votre Beauté for March 2012 (“Me—only better”). Inaccessible “transcendence” gives way to “immanence” and a promise of attainability. Aspirations are no longer focused on a remote ideal but on achieving the perfect version of the “self.” This can be accomplished simply by constantly improving one’s silhouette and appearance.

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biologists in animal morphology, resulting in detailed drawings of different species with their gradual modifications in form. The classification of types now became a legitimate enterprise. Systems were established and extended to the human body itself, which was explored according to its own variations. In this way, silhouette artists effectively established a natural science museum. At a deeper level, early 19th-century observers were absorbed by an interest in physical indications of social differences. The new “bourgeois” society in England and the Revolution in France had apparently eradicated “obvious” signs of order and rank. “Visual” distinctions were deemed to have been obliterated. A new form of observation was developing, together with a shift in curiosity: this helped to reveal hidden elements in appearances previously seen as vaguely “identical.” A perspective was established, centering on a clearer analysis of the “human comedy” and an improved awareness of “hidden” details. This explains the new focus on the “social physique,” the aim being to discern bodily indicators and to classify anatomies. In this way, the first natural science museum to establish separate morphological categories became a museum of social types. This brought about a change in the iconographical status of the silhouette. No longer simply a black shadow contrasting with a white background, it was now characterized by its sharp delineation and the concision and distinctive quality of its lines. This was none other than a new illustrational genre, with its sudden and profuse display of different appearances and profiles, and its rich array of varied figures. The limitless examples of physical diversity, both individual and social, suggested by these images seem to have been overlooked by the old iconic tradition until this time. This was implied by Daumier when he gave the title Silhouettes to his series of portraits illustrating social types in the 1840s. His definition was based on an exclusive focus on line, with extremely varied physical boundaries, intense expressivity of contour, rigorously concise and precise outlines. The black shadow technique initiated an iconic style. This involved depicting specifically linear physical aspects, presenting clear-cut contours and figures intended to create the maximum effect with the minimum of lines. This style invaded the illustrated pages of the Romantic era, doubtless assisted by the increasingly rapid techniques of producing prints and lithographs. And finally, the press, widely dominant in the 19th century, favored allusive, hasty illustrations, their message expressed through a few adeptly executed traces. These were mainly intended to “capture” observers, or even to convince them “at a glance.” The silhouette motif, with its linear profile and incisive figures, enjoyed great success in the illustrated dailies at the end of the century, presenting an unprecedented variety of appearances and body types. The term “silhouette” itself defines this new genre, with its figures depicted by line alone. This also sets a challenge, the aim being to convey the

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“most” with the “least”: economizing the graphic process to intensify the focus on meaning. Such ‘method’ inevitably exerts a visual influence, so that the abbreviated style of these figures became familiar. It drew attention to attitudes and positions, and accustomed the gaze to examples of heterogeneity. Above all, it cultivated hasty depictions, which were equally quickly perceived. Consequently, the word “silhouette” and its application became widespread. It was no longer restricted to drawings made by illustrators, but also referred to the actual contours of the body. Likewise, it was no longer solely associated with iconography, but with the commonplace, everyday nature of bodily appearance. One further, decisive change was necessary for the silhouette to become transformed in this way. There had to be a material change in the physical, “exterior” appearance. The “line,” in its strongest sense, needed to establish itself. The narrow, concealed boundaries of the body had to prevail over its exterior contours: the form beneath had to eclipse the form in view, and the whole physique, seen at a glance, had to present a unified, linear outline. In other words, in an almost anatomical approach, the most basic contours of the body, those of its bones, had to become the most legitimate and most expressive physical reference point. The silhouette theme was better suited than ever to describe bodily appearance, as the latter had fundamentally changed. Now it was both deliberately linear in form and narrower in definition. It traced the outline of the body’s structure, with no artifice or pretense. This was the case, for instance, with the looks characteristic of the early 20th century, when the term “silhouette” triumphed as a definition of the essential physical appearance. The history of the word has therefore proved to be more complex than it might seem, suggesting the change that occurred both in physical and sartorial appearance. This certainly marked a major shift, which could only be demonstrated by a number of driving forces that had been set in motion. For example, the dawn of the 20th century saw women’s dress become more liberating: their movements were less constrained, their use of artifice was reduced, their gestures and actions were more swiftly orchestrated. Dresses fitted more closely to the body in order to adapt to these developments, material flowed over the angles of the anatomy, and ribbons vanished—along with bows, folds, poufs, and corsets. Material now followed the lines of the figure, as clothing reflected an entire image based on slenderness and fluidity. These changes were linked to the participation of women in public life, a totally new development that favored an unprecedented approach to appearance based on functionality. In this way, it is very clear that the adoption of the word “silhouette” to define appearance was the sign of a cultural shift. Men’s appearance changed too, as their garments became increasingly functional in response to a vision of speed, technology, and efficiency. Leisure activities

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played their part in developing these changes as a whole: both men’s and women’s clothing became lighter, more skin was exposed, there was greater freedom of appearance and postures, and there was a more markedly streamlined quality to bodies liberated from all surrounding encumbrances. A move away from modest dress gave further confirmation to this body language. The anatomical form beneath the dressmakers’ creations was now clearly evident; the lines of the body had acquired a coherence that identified them as a single contour, as long-concealed bodily forms emerged and became visible. In this way, the notion of the silhouette may suddenly shift towards a more personal interpretation. The “figure” must be monitored in order to preserve the visible appearance; the “contours” must be monitored in order to condition the body as a whole. This is no longer simply a question of excessive weight or thinness, for example, but involves discreet nuances, seemingly concealed flaws, forgotten issues of bodily disproportion—the very problems relentlessly revealed by today’s fashions. This explains why the term “silhouette” has invaded strategies for dealing with the appearance, and why it can encapsulate an individual’s identity. This is why its message has been transformed into the ultimate challenge of physical appearance: to create the most perfect possible version of the personal bodily form, while observing the increasingly emphatic norms of slenderness and lightness.

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NOTES

  1 C. Flament-Hennebique, SOS Silhouette, Paris, Éd. Frison-Roche, 1995.   2 H. Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary, London, Picador, 1996.    3 An exception to this is the truly remarkable initiative led by Ségolène Le Men, which resulted in an exhibition at the Musée de L’Isle Adam, together with a catalogue: S. Le Men (curator), Pour rire! Daumier, Gavarni, Rops, L’invention de la silhouette, Paris, Somogy, 2010.   4 S. Mercier, Le Tableau de Paris (1782) Paris, Mercure de France, 1989, vol. I p. 357.   5 E. Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, New York, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009.    6 E. N. Jackson, The History of Silhouettes, London, 1911, p. 8.   7 Id.   8 Genealogical Almanach for the year 1780, Lawenbourg, 1780, plate for the month of October.   9 Jackson, The History of Silhouettes, p. 15.  10 Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, p. 50–51.   11 Art. “Silhouette,” in W. Duckett (Ed.), Dictionnaire de la conversation et de la lecture, Paris, 1832.   12 J.-J. Rousseau, Les Confessions (1782–1789), vol. XII, p. 613.   13 F. Brunot, Histoire de la langue, 1930 (18th century, 2nd part, fasc. 1, p. 1106 and 1301).  14 Jackson, The History of Silhouettes, p. 13.   15 J. C. Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie destiné à faire connaître l’homme et à le faire aimer, The Hague, 1793, vol. II, p. 160.  16 Ibid., p. 157.  17 Id.  18 Ibid., p. 158.  19 Ibid., p. 159.  20 Id.  21 Jackson, The History of Silhouettes, p. 11.  22 Id.  23 Ibid., p. 10.   24 E. Hocquart, Le Lavater des dames, ou l’Art de connaître les femmes sur leur physionomie; suivi d’un essai sur les moyens de procréer des enfants d’esprit, Paris, 1812.   25 A. David, Le Petit Lavater français, ou les Secrets de la physiognomie dévoilés, Paris, 1854.   26 J. Morel de Rubempré, Le Lavater des tempéraments et des constitutions, ou l’Art de les bien distinguer par des signes infaillibles, Paris, 1829.  27 Ibid., vol. II, p. 157.  28 Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, p. 39.  29 Ibid., p. 36.  30 Ibid., p. 176.   31 P. Goubert and D. Roche, Les français et l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Armand Colin, 2000, vol. II, p. 275.  32 Id.   33 Quoted by D. Piper, The English Face, London, Thames and Hudson, 1957, p. 216.   34 Goubert and Roche, Les français et l’Ancien Régime, p. 217.  35 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, Phaidon Press Ltd, 2014, p.296.   36 D. Diderot, J. Le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.

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 37 T. Wright, Caricature History of the Georges, London, 1867, p. 317 and following.  38 A. von Kotzebue, Souvenirs de Paris en 1804 (1805), quoted by J. GrandCarteret, Vieux papiers, vieilles images, Carton d’un collectionneur, Paris, 1896, p. 302.  39 Id.  40 Id.  41 Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, p. 52.  42 Ibid., p. 65.  43 Ibid., p. 48.  44 Ibid., p. 49.   45 L. B. Miller, S. Hart and D. C. Ward (Eds.), The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988, vol. II, part I, p. 249.  46 Ibid., p. 49.  47 Grand-Carteret, Vieux papiers, vieilles images, p. 303.   48 Miller, Hart, and Ward (Eds.), The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, vol. II, part I, p. 626.  49 Piper, The English Face, p. 218.   50 V. Schmalcalder, A Short Explanation of the Use and Advantages of the Patent Repeating Theodolite, Invented by Schmalcalder, London, 1821.  51 Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, p. 199.  52 Grand-Carteret, Vieux papiers, vieilles images, p. 301.  53 Ibid., p. 172.  54 Piper, The English Face, p. 218.  55 Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, vol. II, p. 186.  56 Ibid., p. 56.  57 See Catalogue raisonné d’une très précieuse collection d’estampes …du cabinet du comte de Corneillan , La collection entière sera vendue publiquement à Berlin le 1 Novembre 1824 et jours suivants, [Annotated catalogue of a most precious collection of prints … from the office of the Comte de Corneillan, the entire Collection will be publicly sold in Berlin on 1 November 1824 and over the following days] Paris, BnF, Prints Department.   58 W. Hamlet the Elder, George III, Queen Charlotte and Their Three Daughters (late 18th century), Ransford Collection.  59 Grand-Carteret, Vieux papiers, vieilles images, p. 303.   60 On this subject, see also a major work by J. Remise, P. Remise and R. Van de Walle, Magie lumineuse, Du théâtre d’ombres à la lanterne magique, Paris, Balland, 1979.   61 P.-L. Debucourt, Les Deux Baisers (Paris, 1786), Paris, BnF, Prints Department, and I. Cruikshank, A Chapter of Noses (London, 1790), Paris, BnF, Prints Department.  62 J. F. von Goez, Exercices d’imagination de différents caractères et formes humaines, Paris, 1783.  63 G. L. L. de Buffon, “De la dégénération des animaux” (1766), in Œuvres philosophiques, Paris, PUF, 1954, p. 394.  64 Ibid., p. 396.   65 D. N. Chodowiecki, “Attitudes,” in J. C. Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, (1783 edition), vol. III, p. 192 and following.   66 J. Gillray, Prints (18th–19th centuries), Paris, BnF, Prints Department.  67 T. Rowlandson, caricature of newspaper readers, (1798), Paris, BnF, Prints Department.   68 J. Gillray, The Installation Supper as Given at the Pantheon by the Knight of the Bath on the 26 of May 1788, Paris, BnF, Prints Department.

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  69 W. Hogarth, The Stagecoach (ca. 1760), Paris, BnF, Prints Department.  70 Narat, Les Pélerins de Saint-Jacques (1791), Paris, BnF, Prints Department.   71 N. Andry de Bois-Regard, L’Orthopédie, Paris, 1741, 2 vols.   72 D. Diderot, Essai sur la peinture (1798) in Œuvres complètes, Paris, Le Club français du livre, 1972, vol. VI, p. 254. See “L’esthétique du bossu.”  73 Id.   74 P. Camper, Dissertation sur la meilleure forme de souliers, Paris, 1791, p. 121.   75 C.-H. Watelet, Dictionnaire des arts, de peinture, sculpture et gravure, Paris, 1792, art. “Beauté,” p. 80.   76 J. C. Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, vol. I, p. 4.   77 W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1955, p. 74.  78 Ibid., p. 68.  79 Grand Calendrier et compost des bergers, avec leur astrologie et plusieurs autres choses (15th century), Paris, Jean de Bonnot, 1998, p. 41.  80 Ibid., p. 42.   81 R. de Piles, Cours de peinture par principes, Paris, 1708, p. 264 and 276.  82 Ibid., p. 494.   83 C. Le Brun, Le Chancelier Séguier (1653–1657), Paris, The Louvre Museum.   84 A. Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes, Paris, 1725 (1st ed. 1666–1688), vol. I, p. 240.   85 Leonardo da Vinci, “Proportions”; see E. Panofsky, “The History of the Theory of Human Proportions as a Reflection of the History of Styles,” in Meaning in the Visual Arts, The University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Edition, 1982.   86 A. Dürer, Les Quatre Livres de la proportion des parties et portraict des corps humains (1512), Paris, 1613.   87 A. and P. Pollaiolo, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, London, The National Gallery.  88 J. Callot, Dessins de mousquetaires (17th century), Saint Petersburg, The Hermitage.   89 C.-A. du Fresnoy, L’Art de peinture, Paris, 1668, p. 8 and 12.   90 H. Testelin, Sentiments des plus habiles peintres sur la pratique de la peinture et de la sculpture, Paris, 1696, p. 10.   91 R. Abirached, Preface to D. Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien (1770), Paris, Gallimard, “Folio” coll., 1994, p. 15.  92 Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages…, vol. 1, p. 75.  93 Id.  94 See supra, p. 19.   95 W.H. Brown, The “DeWitt Clinton” Train (ca. 1850), Hartford, Connecticut Historical Society.  96 Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow, p. 189.   97 A. Oliver (Ed.), Augustin Edouart’s Silhouettes of Eminent Americans, 1839– 1844, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1977, p. 13.   98 E. N. Jackson, Ancestors in Silhouette Cut by August Edouart, Illustrative Notes and Biographical Sketches, by Mrs F. Nevill Jackson, London, John Lane, 1921, p. 9.  99 Ibid., p. 12. 100 Edinburgh Evening Courant, 8 May 1830. 101 See supra, p. 28–29. 102 A. Oliver (Ed.), August Edouart’s Silhouettes, see plates. 103 Advertisement for the Lyceum Gallery (1840), De Peyer Collection. 104 A. Édouart, Sarah Wilstar Pennock and her Daughter (ca. 1840), McClard Collection. 105 S. O’Driscoll, A patrician who gives alms to an old Jewish beggar with a dejected hound (ca. 1850), De Peyer Collection.

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106 C. Baudelaire, “Qu’est ce que le Romantisme? Salon de 1846, in Œuvres complètes, Paris, Gallimard, “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” collection, p. 609. 107 C. Sala, Caspar David Friedrich et la peinture romantique, Paris, Terrail, 1993: “Face à l’inexprimable force de la nature, l’homme, dans son exiguïté, n’a d’autre recours que la méditation” (“Confronted with the inexpressible force of nature, man, in his insignificance, can only turn to meditation”), p. 86. 108 A. Béguin, L’Âme romantique et le rêve, Essai sur le romantisme allemand et la poésie française, Paris, 1937, vol. I, p. 233. 109 J.-J. Grandville, Les Étoiles, dernière féerie, Paris, 1849, p. 34. 110 P. Courthion, le Romantisme, Paris, Skira, 1961, p. 7: “Ce mal lancinant qui enfiévra la jeunesse du monde après la chute de Napoléon.” (“This painful anguish that agitated the youth of the world after the fall of Napoleon.”). 111 A. Rauch, “Néoclassicisme et romantisme: la peinture européene entre deux revolutions,” in R. Toman (Ed.), Néoclassicisme et romantisme, architecture, sculpture, peinture, dessin, Paris, Ullman, 2007 (1st ed. 2006), p. 331. 112 Novalis, Hymne à la nuit (1800), quoted by L. Rosenthal, Le Romantisme, Paris, Parkstone, 2008, p. 87. 113 H. Taine, Voyage aux Pyrénées, Paris, 1889 (1st ed. 1860), illustrations by Gustave Doré, p. 185. 114 Samuel Rogers, “Italy,” The Great Saint-Bernard, illustration by William Turner, London, 1830. 115 C. Nodier, Paris historique, Promenade dans les rues de Paris, Paris, 1838. In particular, see “Butte Saint Roch,” “Barrière du Trône,” “Rue de la Verrerie.” 116 H. de Balzac, Les Contes drolatiques colligez ez abbayes de Touraine, Paris, Garnier, 1861, p. 72. 117 Fierabras, légende nationale, Paris, 1857, illustrations by Gustave Doré, p. 53. 118 Nadar, “Les logements insalubres parisiens,” in Petits Albums pour rire, 1854, no. 1. 119 F. Bouchot, “L’envie,” in Paris comique, livre album, Paris, 1842. 120 R. Töpffer, Réflexions et menus propos d’un peintre genevois (19th century mss.), Geneva, Payot, 1928: “La langue académique, langue de formules élégantes mais froides,” p. 151. 121 R. Töpffer, Les Amours de Monsieur Vieux-Bois, Geneva, 1827; Les Voyages et aventures du Docteur Festus, Geneva, 1829; Histoire de Monsieur Cryptogame, Geneva, 1830; Histoire de Monsieur Crépin, Geneva, 1837. 122 See the scenes from Histoire de Monsieur Cryptogame. 123 J.-E. Bersier, La Gravure, les procédés, l’histoire, Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1963, p. 282–283. 124 R. Blachon, La Gravure sur bois au XIXe siècle, l’Âge du bois debout, Paris, Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2001, p. 101. 125 See the page featuring the omnibus, in Omnibus ou Physiologie de tout le monde, Paris, 1844, p. 10. 126 Grand-Carteret, Vieux papiers, vieilles images, p. 311. 127 See, on lithography, S. Dahl, Histoire du livre de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Paris, Poinat, 1960 (1st ed. 1928), p. 237. 128 R. Blachon, La Gravure sur bois au XIXe siècle, p. 88. 129 F. Mélonio, “De la culture critique à la culture civique,” in J.-P. Sirinelli and J.P. Rioux (Eds.), Histoire culturelle de la France, Paris, Seuil, 1998, vol. III, Lumière et liberté, p. 211. 130 G. Fevel, “Les transformations de la presse au XIXe siècle,” in D. Kalifa, P. Régnier, M.-È. Thérenty and A. Vaillant (Eds.), La civilisation du journal, Histoire littéraire et culturelle de la presse française au XIXe siècle, Paris, Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2011. 131 See L’Image, 1847, p. 264.

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132 Nadar, “Tous les agréments réunis au steeple chase,” in Petits Albums pour rire, 1854, no 1. 133 L’Image, p. 49. 134 S. Le Men, “La vignette et la lettre,” Histoire de l’édition, R. Chartier and H.-J. Martin (Eds.), vol. III, Le Temps des éditeurs, Paris, Promodis, 1985, p. 316 and p. 320. 135 See “Spectacle amusant qui représente les courses,” in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, Paris, 6th issue, 1842, p. 42. 136 H. Daumier, “Pluie d’orage,” in C. P. de Kock, La Grande ville, Paris, 1842, vol. I, p. 330. 137 Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, 40th issue, p. 315. 138 C. Robert, Paris silhouette, Paris, 1840. 139 A. T. Desquiron de Saint-Agnan, Les Contemporains, Silhouette politique et morale, Paris, 1818. 140 La Silhouette, Journal des caricatures, Paris, 1830. 141 Ibid., no 1. 142 R. Brucker, “L’humanitaire,” in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, Paris, 1841, Vol. II, p. 18. 143 H. Daumier, “Le peintre distrait,” “Silhouette” series, Caran Collection, Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 144 H. Daumier, “Combien je regrette,” “Silhouette” series, Caran Collection, Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 145 Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, 1842, 1st issue. 146 M. Alhoy, “Les débardeurs,” in Les Physiologies parisiennes illustrées, Paris, 1850, p. II. 147 E. Texier, Tableau de Paris, Paris, 1852–1853, vol. I, p. II. 148 H. de Balzac, Traité de la vie élégante, suivi de La Théorie de la démarche (1833), Paris, ed. Bossard, 1922, p. 57. 149 Ibid., p. 71. 150 La Silhouette, journal artistique et littéraire de l’Aube, September 1840. 151 Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes, Paris, 1840 (1st English ed., 1839). 152 Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, Paris, 9 vols, 1841–1842. 153 Les Enfants peints par eux-mêmes, Paris, 1841. 154 Le Muséum parisien, Histoire physiologique, pittoresque, philosophique, grotesque de toutes les bêtes curieuses de Paris et de la banlieue, Paris, 1841. 155 Honoré de Balzac continued to be guided by the zoological metaphor, which had been completely revised through the work of Buffon in the 18th century. “For are not men molded by society, according to the environments in which they live and act, into as many different types as there are zoological species?” Foreword to the Comédie humaine, Paris, ed. Houssiaux, 1853, vol. I, p. 18–19. At all events, the enterprise involved revisiting all classifications and categories in their entirety. The theme of “type” remains constant: “When you come upon a genuine ‘type’ in Paris, he ceases to be a man, and becomes a spectacle.” Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (1838), La Comédie humaine, vol. XI, p. 423–424. 156 See in particular S. Le Men, “Les images sociales du corps,” in A. Corbin, J.-J. Courtine and G. Vigarello, Histoire du corps, vol. II., De la Révolution à la Grande Guerre, Seuil, 2005. Also see S. Le Men, “Le panorama de la grande ville, la silhouette réinventée,” in S. Le Men (Ed.), Pour rire!... 157 A. Lhéritier (Ed.), Les Physiologies, catalogue d’exposition de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, BN, 1958. 158 Gavarni, Œuvres choisies, Paris, 1845, vol. I. 159 T. Gautier, “Gavarni,” in Gavarni, Œuvres choisies, vol. I.

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160 H. de Balzac, Grandeur et décadence de César Birotteau (1837), in La Comédie humaine, vol. V, p. 367. 161 H. de Balzac, La Maison Nucingen (1837), in La Comédie humaine, vol. Vol, p. 595. 162 Ibid., p. 602. 163 H. de Balzac, Le Contrat de marriage (1835), in La Comédie humaine, vol. III, p. 114. 164 H. de Balzac, Pierre Grassou, Paris, Houssiaux, vol. II, p. 72. 165 H. de Balzac, Z. Marcas, Paris, Houssiaux, vol. 12, p. 414. 166 Les Petits Albums pour rire, 1854, no 2, “La Conscription.” 167 J.-J. Grandville, Un autre monde, Paris, 1844. 168 Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. IV, p. 193. 169 M. Alhoy, “Le Voyageur,” in Les Physiologies parisiennes illustrées. p. II. 170 L. Huart, “Le Flâneur,” in ibid. 171 H. de Balzac, “L’Employée” in ibid. 172 Grandville, Un autre monde, p. 162. 173 C. Motte, Eh Bonjour – donc (1821), Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 174 Le Sollicitateur convexe: le goût du jour no 34, Paris, 1817, Le Sollicitateur concave: le goût du jour no 33, Paris, 1817. 175 Muséum parisien, Histoire physiologique, philosophique, pittoresque et grotesque de toutes les bêtes curieuses de Paris et de la banlieue, p. 187 and p. 190. 176 See “Les Visites” in Musée Grotesque, Paris, 1817–1830. 177 See, among others, S. Igny, Éléments de pourtraiture, ou de la Manière de représenter et pourtraire toutes les parties du corps humain, Paris, 1630. 178 Ibid., p. 35. 179 H. Daumier, L’Œuvre lithographique, Paris, Arthur Hubschmid, 1978 (1st German ed., 1977), vol. I, p. 116–117. 180 H. Daumier, “Je ne sais pas ce qu’on peut trouver d’amusant à toutes ces bêtises-là” (“I don’t know what’s so funny about all that nonsense”), plate 64 in the “Caricaturana” series, 1837, p. 178. 181 Daumier, the “Caricaturana” series. 182 Nadar, “Ennuyées de n’avoir rien à faire cet hiver…” (“Sick and tired of having nothing to do this winter”) in the Petits Albums pour rire, 1854, no 1. 183 Grandville, Un autre monde, p. 162. 184 Nadar,“Grande fête des blanchisseuses,” in the Petits Albums pour rire, 1854, no 1. 185 A. Barde, Traité encyclopédique de l’art du tailleur, Paris, 1834. 186 J. A. D. Ingres, Jean-Baptiste Desdéban (1810), private collection. 187 G. R. Taylor, The Science of Life, A Picture History of Biology, Thames and Hudson Ltd., New York, 1963, p. 89: “Lavoisier made these experiments quantitative. He shut up animals and weighed how much air they breathed, showing that oxygen is absorbed in the lungs and carbon dioxide given off in exchange.” The view of respiration was transformed: oxygen became a “fuel,” the lungs became an “engine.” This radically changed the presentation of the silhouette. 188 Journal des modes et des dames, Paris, 1824, p. 240. 189 J. A. Brillat-Savarin, La Physiologie du goût, Paris, 1825. 190 S. Peytal, Physiologie de la poire, Paris, 1832, p. 66. 191 Brilla-Savarin, La Physiologie du gout, “Méditation XXI,” p. 210. 192 Peytal, Physiologie de la poire, p. 229. 193 See in particular F. Erre, Le Règne de la poire, Caricatures de l’esprit bourgeois de Louis-Philippe à nos jours, Paris, Champ Vallon, 2011.

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194 B. Tillier, À la charge! La caricature en France de 1789 à 2000, Paris, Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2005. 195 H. de Balzac, L’Illustre Gaudissart (1833) in La Comédie humaine, vol. IV, p. 21. 196 See Gavarni, Œuvres choisies. 197 Honoré de Balzac, The Girl with the Golden Eyes and Other Stories, translated by Peter Collier, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 93. Also see B. Vannier, L’Inscription du corps chez Balzac, Pour une sémiologie du portrait balzacien, Paris, Klircksieck, 1972. 198 H. de Balzac, Une fille d’Ève (1839), in La Comédie humaine, vol. II, p. 104. 199 G. Houbre, La Discipline de l’amour, L’éducation sentimentale des filles et des garçons à l’âge du romantisme, Paris, Plon, 1997, “La danse, trait d’union entre les deux sexes,” p. 210. 200 A. Dumas, Mes mémoires (1852–1855), Paris, Robert Laffont, 1989, vol. I, p. 348. 201 Longchamp, revue de mode, 31 July 1840. 202 Gavarni , the “Les débardeurs” series, in Œuvres choisies,Paris, 1848. 203 “L’institutrice” in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. II. 204 H. Daumier, “Comment trouves-tu mon châle?” (“What do you think of my shawl?”) in Le Charivari, 20 October 1846. 205 H. Daumier, illustrations in Le Charivari, 1845–1847. 206 J.-J. Grandville, Les Métamorphoses du jour, Paris, Aubert, 1829. 207 See supra, p. 54. 208 See supra, p. 47. 209 A. Richerand, Nouveaux éléments de physiologie, Paris, 1802, vol. II, p. 269. 210 Dictionnaire de médicine, Paris, 1827, art. “Station.” 211 Ibid., p. 284. 212 Id. 213 J. Briand, Manuel complet d’hygiène, rédigé selon la doctrine du professeur Hallé, à l’usage des étudiants de médicine et des gens du monde, Paris, 1826, p. 27. 214 C. Pravaz, Méthode nouvelle pour le traitement des déviations de la colonne vertébrale, précédée d’un examen critique des divers moyens employés par les orthopédistes modernes, Paris, 1827. Also see the “chariot orthopédique,” in C. Pravaz, Mémoire sur la réalité de l’art orthopédique, Paris, 1844. 215 S. H. V. Bouvier, Programme d’un cours public et gratuit d’orthopédie, Paris, 1828, p. 1. 216 C.-A. Maisonabe, Journal clinique sur les difformités dont le corps humain est susceptible à toutes les époques de la vie (1st part) et sur la mécanique et les instruments employés par la chirurgie en France et à l’étranger (2nd part), Paris, 1828. 217 Grandville, Les Métamorphoses du jour, plates. 218 F. A. Barde, Traité encyclopédique de l’art du tailleur, Paris, 1834, plates. 219 See supra, p. 63. 220 See Le Journal des jeunes personnes, 1835, “Toilettes d’été,” p. 234, or “Toilettes d’automne,” p. 332. 221 H. de Balzac, “La Femme comme il faut,” in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. I, Provinces, Paris, 1840–1842, p. 26. 222 La Silhouette, 1829, p. 70. 223 C. Baudelaire, “À une passante,” Tableaux parisiens (1857), in Œuvres complètes, Paris, Gallimard, coll. “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,” 1954, p. 164. 224 H. de Balzac, Traité de la démarche, Paris, 1842, p. 112. 225 H. de Balzac, “La femme de province,” in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, vol. I, p. 2.

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226 H. Daumier, “Ils s’appellent ça un grain!...,” in Le Charivari, 19 September 1859. 227 Gavarni, “Quand je vous disais…” from the series “La vie de jeune homme” in Œuvres choisies. 228 “Ma femme qui vous avait donné rendez-vous…” in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, 2nd issue. 229 H. Daumier, “Réception académique,” in Le Charivari, 24 April 1868. 230 Cham, L’Assemblée nationale comique, Paris, 1850, p. 366. 231 Grandville, Les Métamorphoses du jour, “Bassesse et orgeuil,” p. 15. 232 “La danse expressive,” in Musée, ou Magasin comique de Philipon, 9th issue. 233 Töpffer, Monsieur Cryptogame. 234 G. Doré, “Ces premiers défricheurs d’un monde inconnu,” in X. B. Saintine, La Mythologie du Rhin, Paris, 1862. 235 Töpffer’s depictions of races. 236 H. Taine, Voyage aux Pyrénées, print by Gustave Doré, “La marche en troupe,” p. 443. 237 Musée, ou magasin comique de Philipon. 238 H. Daumier, “Deux heures du matin…,” in Tout ce qu’on voudra, 1847, Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 239 Bacot, “La presse illustrée du XIXe siècle,” in D. Kalifa, P. Régnier, M.–È. Thérenty and A. Vaillant (Eds.), La Civilisation du journal. 240 F. Valdès-Forain, “Le polémiste: violences graphiques et picturales,” in F. Valdès-Forain (Ed.), Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931), “La Comédie parisienne,” exhibition catalogue, Petit Palais, 10 March–5 June 2011, p. 127. 241 Ibid., p. 126. 242 Id. 243 H. Gerbault, Les Maîtres humoristes, les meilleurs dessins, les meilleures légendes, H. Gerbault, Paris, 1905, 1st album, “Une idée.” 244 See La Vie parisienne, 1902. 245 Valdès-Forain (Ed.), Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931), “La Comédie parisienne,” p. 126. 246 See the print “Sur le pont des Arts.” 247 Valdès-Forain (Ed.), Jean-Louis Forain (1852–1931), “La Comédie parisienne,” p. 126. 248 Forain remembered by Sem, quoted in ibid., p. 129. 249 M. du Seigneur, Paris, voici Paris, Paris, 1889; illustration by H. Gerbault in “Chez nos édiles,” p. 145. 250 A. Huart, Les Parisiennes, Paris, 1879: illustration by A. Grévin, “Les types de plage,” p. 411. 251 A. Millaud, La Comédie du jour sous la République athénienne, Paris, 1886: illustration by Caran d’Ache, “Asnières, Sceaux, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,” p. 259. 252 See, among others, S. Pincas and M. Loiseau, Une histoire de la publicité, Paris, Taschen, 2008, and A. Weil, Les Maîtres de l’affiche 1900, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Image, 2001. 253 É. Mermet, La Publicité en France, guide pratique, annuaire pour 1878, Paris, 1878. 254 Ibid., p. 66. 255 D. Hémet, Traité pratique de publicité commerciale et industrielle, Paris, 1922 (1st ed. 1912), vol. II, p. 130. 256 J. Adhémar, “Lautrec peintre graveur,” in J. Adhémar and P. Jourdain, ToulouseLautrec, Paris, Pierre Tisné, 1955, p. 56. 257 Ibid., p. 59.

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258 H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Milton, La Troupe de Mlle Églantine (1896), Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 259 H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Divan japonais (1893), Paris, BnF, Prints Department. 260 K. Delobbe, L’Affiche, Mouans-Sartoux, PEMF, 2003, p. 16. 261 J. Adhémar and P. Jourdain, Toulouse-Lautrec, p. 59–60. 262 L. Bernhard, Novelta, Berlin, 1912. 263 L. Merlicovitz, Mele, Milan, 1904. 264 See the posters by Leonetto Cappiello in this publication. 265 H. C. Adam, Eadweard Muybridge, The Human and Animal Locomotion Photographs, New York, Taschen, 2010. 266 C. Pociello, La Science en mouvements: Étienne Marey et Georges Demenÿ (1870–1920), Paris, PUF, 1999. 267 M. Duchamp, Nu descendant un escalier no 2 (1912), Philadelphia, Museum of Art. 268 J. Clair (Ed.), É.-J. Marey, 1830–1904, la photographie en mouvement, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1977, p. 73. 269 Scientific American, 19 October 1878, p. 46. 270 E. Muybridge quoted by H. C. Adam, “Muybridge and Motion Photography,” in H. C. Adam (Ed.), Eadweard Muybridge, The Human and Animal Locomotion Photographs, New York, Taschen, no date, p. 10. 271 La Vie parisienne, 1902. 272 “La mode de demain,” in Le Courrier français, 11 December 1909. 273 Bertall, “Les modes actuelles,” in Almanach de l’Illustration, 1876. 274 É. Zola, Nana (1879), Paris, Gallimard, “Folio” coll., 1977, p. 348. 275 See the poster by C. Rochegrosse, L’Automobile au Grand Palais, Paris, 1907. 276 Le Caprice, 1st June, 1876, p. 9. 277 Le Messager des modes, 1910, p. 133. 278 G. d’Avenel, Les Mécanismes de la vie moderne, Paris, 1902, vol. IV, p. 67. 279 Les Dessous élégants, 1909. 280 L. O’Followell, Le Corset, histoire, medicine, hygiène, Paris, Maloine, 1908, advertisement, appendix, plate II. 281 Les Dessous élégants, 1901. 282 N. Kimball: Nell Kimball: Her Life as an American Madam, © 1970 by GodoffLongstreet Co., Berkeley Medallion Edition, 1971, p. 101. 283 I would like to thank Yvette de la Frémondière for very kindly indicating these sources. 284 G. Meunier, “S comme Sylphe,” in G. Nivet, 1000 dessous, Histoire de la lingerie, Paris, Taschen, 1998, p. 86. 285 Gerbault, Les Maîtres humoristes. 286 Gerbault, Les Maîtres humoristes. 287 F. Tamagno, “Cachous Lajaunie.” 288 “Contemplation,” a drawing by Préjelan, in L’Illustré national, 6 August 1905, p. 5. 289 O. Feuillet, Histoire d’une Parisienne, Paris, 1912, p. 68. 290 “Les Édens,” in Le Courrier français, 1898. 291 O. Uzanne, Études de sociologie féminine, Parisiennes de ce temps en leurs divers milieux, états ou conditions, Paris, 1910, p. 51. 292 M. Robbe, “Le Tub,” in Le Courrier français, 1898. 293 H. Boutet, Autour d’elles, Paris, 1898. 294 See, among others, Degas, Sortie du bain (1876), Paris, Musée d’Orsay. 295 L. Morin, Carnavals parisiens (prints by J. Chéret), Paris, 1897. 296 See Le Monde illustré, “Le bouillonnement capiteux de leurs dessous,” quoted by R. Muriand, Les Folies-Bérgère, Sèvres, La Sirène, 1994, p. 27.

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297 See Le Courrier français, 1890. 298 M. Hervieu, “Cafés-concerts, cirques, music-halls, dancings,” in L’Amour et l’esprit gaulois à travers l’histoire, Paris, Martin-Dupuis, 1929, vol. IV, p. 309. 299 A. Willette, “Douze années de lute,” Le Courrier français, cover, 1 January 1898. 300 Romi, La Conquête du nu, Paris, Éditions de Paris, 1954, p. 154. 301 La Vie parisienne, 25 February 1898. 302 Ibid., 14 January 1898. 303 É. Zola, Carnets d’enquêtes, Une ethnographie inédite de la France, texts introduced and presented by H. Mitterrand, Paris, Plon, “Terre humaine” coll., 1896, p. 321. 304 O. Mirbeau, Le Journal d’une femme de chambre (1900), Paris, Gallimard, “Folio” coll., 1984, p. 72. 305 Ibid., 25 April 1896. 306 S. Melchior-Bonnet, Histoire du miroir, Paris, Imago, 1994, p 105. 307 Morin, Carnavals parisiens, p. 13. 308 Nouveaux Contes du Palais, Paris, 1889, illustrated by E. Rapp, p. 190. 309 Huart, Les Parisiennes, p. 281. 310 The League of Mothers, Pour la beauté naturelle de la femme. Contre la mutilation de la taille par le corset, Paris, 1908, p. 34. Also see J. Rabant, “Ah, la belle histoire du corset,” in L’Histoire, no 45, 1982. 311 Ibid., p. 46. 312 Ibid., p. 20. 313 F. Glénard, Le Vêtement féminin et l’hygiène, Conférence faite à l’Association française pour l’avancement des sciences, le 25 février 1902, Paris, 1902. 314 D. Gardey, La Dactylographe et l’Expéditionnaire, Histoire des employés de bureau, 1890–1930, Paris, Belin, 2001, p. 66. 315 J. W. Scott, “La travailleuse,” in G. Duby and M. Perrot (Eds.), Histoire des femmes, Paris, Plon, 1991, vol. IV, p. 426. 316 Quoted by P. Morand, L’Allure Chanel, Paris, Hermann, 1976, p. 71. 317 Femina, 1928. 318 L. Braun, Die Frauenfrage: Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung und ihre wirt­schaft­ liche Seite, Leipzig, 1901, p. 278. 319 L’Illustration, 18 February 1911. 320 Ibid., 9 July 1910. 321 Vogue, January 1934. 322 Votre beauté, September 1933. 323 Vogue, Femina and Votre beauté featured the most expressive drawings in the late 1920s: then, the proportions of the legs and torso for a drawing 13 cm in length were 9 cm and 3 cm respectively, while they measured 8.5 cm and 4.5 cm in drawings of the same overall length in 19th-century fashion periodicals. 324 See Van Dongen, La Femme au miroir (1925, private coll.), a characteristic portrait where the legs are excessively long. 325 J.-É. Laboureur, La Promenade au phare (1925), Paris, BnF, Prints Dept. See also S. Laboureur, Catalogue complet de l’œuvre de J.-É. Laboureur, 3 vols, Neufchâtel, Ides et Calendes, 1989. 326 Morand, L’Allure Chanel, p. 46. 327 Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, part 2, Within a Budding Grove, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, London, Chatto and Windus, 1924, vol. I, pp. 272–273. 328 A. Favrichon, Toilettes et silhouettes féminines chez Marcel Proust, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1987, p. 116. I am grateful to Éliane Contini for providing me with this reference.

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329 A.-M. Sohn, “La Garçonne face à l’opinion publique: type littéraire ou type social des années 20?” in Le Mouvement social, July–September 1972, p. 5. 330 Les Modes, March 1936. 331 J. Zanon, Quand la couture célèbre le corps féminin, Jean Patou (1919–1929), Paris, École des chartes, thesis for the Diploma of Archivist-Paleographer, 2012, vol. I, p. 46. 332 Vogue, 1927. 333 Les Dessous élégants, 1911, p. 163. 334 Vogue, 1st April 1924. 335 Le Messager des modes, 1910, p. 12. 336 Vogue, June 1925. 337 Vogue, October 1925. 338 Ibid., 1 January 1927. 339 Ibid., September 1929. 340 Y. Guilbert, La Chanson de ma vie, Paris, Grasset, 1927, p. 50. 341 Vogue, 1 September 1923. 342 Zanon, Quand la couture célèbre le corps féminin, vol. I, p. 440. 343 Vogue, 15 October 1920. 344 See the advertisement for the “neck slimmer,” Vogue, July 1925. 345 Advertisement for the “Vaco cup,” Vogue, November 1925. 346 Advertisement for “Clarks bands,” Vogue, July 1925. 347 Advertisement for the “Roussel belt,” Vogue, November 1925. 348 J.-P. Müller, Le Livre du plein air, Paris, 1909, p. 109. 349 Dr. Mortat, La Culture physique de la femme élégante, Paris, Nilsson, undated (ca. 1930). 350 Advertisement for Elizabeth Arden, Vogue, June 1932. 351 G. Hébert, L’Éducation physique féminine, muscle et beauté plastique, Paris, Vuibert, 1919, p. IV. 352 Votre beauté, April 1935. 353 Ibid., August 1937. 354 See Fashion Design, 1800–1940, Amsterdam, The Pepin Press, 2000, p. 335. 355 See “Kuppenheimer Clothes, 1924,” in 20s All-American Ads, Cologne/Paris, Taschen, 2004, p. 466. 356 Advertisement for “Michou” in Revue naturiste, 15 April 1935. 357 Id. 358 Arms and Cycle Works, Saint-Étienne, Commercial catalogue, Saint-Étienne, 1924, p. 370. 359 H. Béraud, Le Martyre de l’obèse, Monaco, Imprimerie nationale de Monaco, 1950 (1st ed. 1922), p. 36. 360 P. de Rousiers, La Vie américaine, Paris, 1892, p. 379. 361 Advertisement for The White Company (1917), in E. J. Heimann, All-American Ads, 1900–1919, Cologne, Taschen, 2001, p. 179. 362 Béraud, Le Martyre de l’obèse, p. 28. 363 E. Desbonnet, Les Rois de la force, Histoire de tous les hommes forts depuis les temps anciens jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, 1911, p. 289. 364 See La Renaissance physique, 1912, no 6. 365 F. Heckel, Culture physique et cures d’exercice, Paris, 1912. 366 G. Hébert, Le Code de la force, Paris, Vuibert, 1911. 367 E. Sandow, Strength and How to Obtain It, London, 1900; see “Sandow’s Chart of Measurements,” p. 38. 368 B. Macfadden, Muscular Power and Beauty, New York, 1906. 369 M. Bouchaud, L’Été à Monte-Carlo Beach, 1929. 370 J. Pierre, Le Cubisme, Lausanne, Éditions Rencontre, 1966, p. 11. 371 L. Feininger, Sur la plage (1913), Paris, Musée d’art moderne.

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372 R. Lestonnat, Le Normandie, 1935. 373 Colette, Le Blé en herbe (1923) in Romans, récits, souvenirs…, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1991, vol. II, p. 308. 374 P. Mac Orlan, La Cavalière Elsa (1921), in Œuvres complètes, Geneva, Cercle du Bibliophile, 1969, vol. II, p. 61. 375 M. Marelli, Les Soins scientifiques de beauté, Paris, J. Oliven, 1936, p. 9. 376 G. Demenÿ, Les Bases scientifiques de l’éducation physique, Paris, Alcan, 1902, p. 167–168. 377 L. Chauvois, Les Dessanglés du ventre, Paris, 1925, p. 77. 378 Hébert, Le Code de la force, p. 154–155. 379 Ibid., p. 23. 380 P. Richer, Nouvelle anatomie artistique, morphologie de la femme, Paris, Plon, 1920. 381 Heckel, Culture physique et cures d’exercice, pl. 3; and Chauvois, Les Dessanglés du ventre, p. 22, fig. 5 and 6. 382 Ibid., p. 15. 383 Hébert, Le Code de la force, p. 54. The term was still unknown when N. Laisné’s Dictionnaire de gymnastique was published in Paris in 1882. 384 J. Kramer, Le Ménage moderne, Guide pratique et cours de la ménagère, Bern, 1933, “La jeunesse florissante et l’ombre de la vieillesse,” p. 268. 385 See supra, p. 61. 386 Demenÿ, Les Bases scientifiques de l’éducation physique, p. 163. 387 Hébert, Le Code de la force, p. 145 and following. 388 Ibid., p. 141. 389 Richer, Nouvelle anatomie artistique, p. 229 and following. 390 Pignet, “Valeur numérqiue de l’homme,” in Bulletin médical, 27 April 1898. 391 F. Régnault, “Les types humains d’après les principales proportions du corps,” in Revue scientifique, 1910. 392 See supra, p. 66. 393 G. Viola, La Legge dell’antagonismo morfologico-ponderale confermata nella popolazione Emiliana, Bologna, 1927. 394 A. Thooris, La Vie par le stade, Paris, Legrand, 1924. 395 P. Abraham, Le Physique au théâtre, Paris, Coutan-Lambert, 1933. 396 Ibid., p. 132–133. 397 N. Pende, “Les biotypes de base,” in N. Pende (Ed.), Traité de médecine biotypologique, Paris, Doin, 1955, p. 325. 398 C. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, London, 1871. 399 Ibid. 400 P. Camper, Dissertation sur les variétés naturelles qui caractérisent les physionomies des hommes de différents climats et de différents âges, Paris, 1791 (1st Dutch edition, 1772), p. 58. 401 A. Bertillon et al. (Ed.), Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques, Paris, undated (ca. 1885), art. “Races humaines.” 402 J. Deniker, Les Races et les peuples de la terre, Paris, 1900, p. 4. 403 See the illustration in the Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques. 404 Dictionnaire des sciences anthropologiques, art. “Races humaines.” 405 P. L. Rehm, Nouvelle encyclopédie pratique de médecine et d’hygiène, Paris, Libraire Aristide Quillet, 1922, vol. I, p. 46. 406 E. Haeckel, Histoire de la création naturelle ou doctrine scientifique de l’évolution, Paris, 1877 (1st German ed., 1868), p. 615. 407 A. E. Brehm, Les Merveilles de la nature, Paris, 1890, vol. X, Les Races humaines, p. 133. 408 A. de Quatrefages, L’Espèce humaine, Paris, 1877, p. 264. 409 P. Topinard, Éléments d’anthropologie générale, Paris, 1885, p. 347.

177

N otes

410 J. Deniker, Races et peuples de la terre, Paris, 1900, p. 108. 411 See supra, p. 105–106. 412 de Quatrefages, L’Espèce humaine, p. 264. 413 A. Vignola, Toutes les femmes, Paris, 1901–1904, vol. II, p. 268–269. 414 É. Drumont, La France juive, Paris, 1888 (1st ed. 1886), p. 39. 415 J.-L. Forain, “Mon enfant, ch’mabbelle…,” in Nous, vous, eux!, Paris, 1893. 416 See the exhibition “The Jews and France” held in Paris at the Palais Berlitz in 1941. 417 Race and Erudition, by Maurice Olender, translated by Jane Marie Todd, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2009, p 28. 418 Pende (Ed.), Traité de médecine biotypologique, p. 325. 419 A. Thooris, “Les types humains selon l’école morphologique française,” in N. Pende (Ed.), Traité de médecine biotypologique, p. 580–597. 420 Pende (Ed.), Traité de médecine biotypologique, p. 328. 421 L. Bernhardt, quoted by J. and S. Müller-Brockmann, Histoire de l’affiche, Paris, Phaidon, 2004, p. 117. 422 Ibid., p. 118. 423 Jack, Camping pêche, advertising poster, Mestre and Blatgé, 1938. 424 H. Matter, Plakat für ein konfektionsgeschäft, Zurich 1928. 425 A. M. Sauvage (Ed.), A. M. Cassandre, Œuvres graphiques modernes, 1923– 1939, Paris, BnF, 2005, p. 77. 426 Ibid., p. 94. 427 N. Stoecklin, Plakat für eine Halstablette, Basel, 1937. 428 P. Picasso, The Old Guitarist (1903), Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago. 429 J. C. Orozco, Victims (1936), University of Guadalajara. 430 Marie Claire, 3 September 1937. 431 Id. 432 Id. 433 Id. 434 Ibid., 30 April 1937. 435 Photo by Horst, Vogue, April 1938. 436 R. Falcucci, Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, 1937. 437 J.-G. Domergue, Nice-Beuil, 1935. 438 C. G. Martignette and L. K. Meisel, Gil Elgren, All his Glamorous American Pin-ups, London/Paris, Taschen, 2008. 439 See, among others, the Emo advertisement of 1954, drawn by Robert Dumoulin. 440 Marie Claire, 12 March 1937. 441 Ibid., 3 September 1937. 442 M. J. Barley, Those Glorious, Glamour Years, The Great Hollywood Costume Designs of the 1930s, New York, Citadel Press, 1982. 443 P. Dubout, Cap d’Antibes, Hôtel du Cap, 1935. 444 See Intimité, de l’Antiquité jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, Les Belles Collections, undated (ca. 1935), illustrated by M. Monier. 445 G. Boccasile, San Remo, Tornero internazionale, 1930. 446 See supra, p. 63. 447 “L’homme normal c’est l’athlète,” in Naturisme, 1 July 1935. 448 M. Rouet, Santé et beauté plastique, Paris, J. Oliven, 1937, p. 204. 449 Id. 450 N. Stoecklin, Plakat für ein konfektionsgeschäft, Zurich, 1934. 451 See the advertisement for “Jockey,” in E. J. Heimann, All-American Ads, London/Paris, Taschen, 2002, p. 595. 452 “Douglas Fairbanks” in R. Boussinot, Encyclopédie du cinema, Paris, Bordas, 1980.

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453 A. de Baecque, “Projections: la virilité à l’écran,” in A. Corbin, J.-J. Courtine and G. Vigarello (Eds.), Histoire de la virilité, Paris, Seuil, 2010, vol. III, p. 431 and following. 454 Photo of Elvis Presley in M. Gabor, The Pin-Up: A Modest History, New York, 1973 (1st ed. 1972), p. 144. 455 Rouet, Santé et beauté plastique, p. 35. 456 Ibid., p. 38. 457 Id. 458 V. Pauchet, Le Chemin du Bonheur, La rééducation de soi-même, Paris, J. Oliven, 1929, p. 259. 459 J. des Vignes Rouges, La Gymnastique de la volonté, Paris, J. Oliven, 1935: see “L’éducation de la volonté par l’image,” p. 149. 460 A. Bitterlin and P. C. Jacot, L’Art d’embellir le corps, Paris, Drouin, 1932, p. 177. 461 Rouet, Santé et beauté plastique, p. 57. 462 J. Lyon, Beauté-service, secrets, recettes d’autrefois, soins, chirurgie d’aujourd’hui, Monaco, Éditions du Rocher, 1954, p. 160. 463 Ibid., p. 38–39. 464 Ibid., p. 57 and p. 67. 465 Marie Claire, 23 August 1937. 466 Elle, 21 November 1945. 467 Lyon, Beauté-service, p. 161. 468 C. Mayer, La Médecine au service de la beauté, Paris, Amiot Dumont, 1955, p. 8. 469 Ibid., p. 109. 470 Lyon, Beauté-service, p. 160. 471 A. Quetelet, Physique sociale, Essai sur le développement des facultés de l’homme, Paris, 1869. 472 La Coiffure et ses modes, November 1930. 473 R. Ghigi, La Beauté en question: autour d’une histoire de la cellulite, thesis for Diploma of Advanced Studies, Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), 2002, p. 56. 474 Id. 475 É. Zola, Au Bonheur des dames (1883), Paris, Garnier Flammarion, 1971, p. 437. 476 A.-M. Seigner (Ed.), L’Encyclopédie Beauté Bien-être, Paris, Culture, Arts, Loisirs, 1964, p. 246. 477 I. Sorente, “Toujours moins,” in Muze, April, May and June 2012, p. 148. 478 Id. 479 M. Chollet, Beauté fatale, Les nouveaux visages d’une aliénation féminine, Paris, Zones, 2012. 480 G. Erner, Victimes de la mode? Comment on la crée, pourquoi on la suit, Paris, La Découverte, 2004. 481 L. Petit, Satyre contre la mode, Paris, 1686. 482 Satyre contre le luxe des femmes, Paris, undated (ca. 1680). 483 Satyre nouvelle contre les mœurs et les modes des hommes, perruques de crin et de cheveux… têtes de mouton et barbes de bouc, Paris, undated (ca. 1680). 484 La mode qui court et les singularités d’icelle, Paris, 1612. 485 See supra, p. 101. 486 Sorente, “Toujours moins,” in Muze, p. 148. 487 Vogue, April 1988. 488 Ibid., February 1990. 489 Ibid., September 1994. 490 Ibid., March 1995. 491 Sorente, “Toujours moins,” in Muze, p. 148.

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N otes

492 Id. 493 Seigner (Ed.), L’Encyclopédie Beauté Bien-être, p. 241. 494 “Silhouette incroyable, affinée, sculptée, lissée,” L’Oréal advertisement, Femina, Le Journal de dimanche, 9 April 2012. 495 Biba, April 2003. 496 Maxi, 24 April 2003. 497 Prima, May 2012. 498 Ibid. 499 See Vogue, October 1970. 500 “Phyto-Svelt” advertisement in Votre beauté, March 2012. 501 N. Aubert and C. Haroche, “Être visible pour exister: l’injonction de la visibilité,” in N. Aubert and C. Haroche (Eds.), Les Tyrannies de la visibilité, Paris, Eres, 2012, p. 17. 502 P. Bourdieu, Sur la télévision, Paris, Liber, 1996, p. 62. 503 C. Rojek, Cette soif de célébrité!, Paris, Autrement, 2001, quoting Bourdieu, p. 12. 504 Birman, “Je suis vu donc je suis: la visibilité en question,” in N. Aubert and C. Haroche (Eds.), Les Tyrannies de la visibilité, p. 39. 505 Ibid., p. 41. 506 Seigner (Ed.), L’Encyclopédie Beauté-Bien-être, p. 23. 507 Votre beauté, December 1960. 508 Ibid., February 1970. 509 G. de Margerie, Dictionnaire du look, Une nouvelle science du jeune, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2011. 510 S. Mimoun, “Aimons notre corps tel qu’il est,” Marie Claire (French Edition), May 2012. 511 R. Evelyn, À corps parfait. Tensions, douleurs raideurs… Notre corps révèle nos secrets, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2003. 512 Votre beauté, June 2003. 513 Cosmopolitan, May 2012. 514 See Femina, Le Journal du dimanche, 9–15 April 2012: “Nos kilos sur le divan, enfance, amour, travail, comment les gommer?” 515 Id. 516 Id. 517 J.-L. Rebora, “L’Egos,” in Collectif, Le Corps qui parle, Paris, Les Cahiers de l’Égaré, 2001, p. 40. 518 Mimoun, “Aimons notre corps tel qu’il est,” Marie Claire (French Edition). 519 D. Yosifon and P. N. Stearns, “The rise and fall of American posture,” in American Historical Review, October 1998. 520 See supra, p. 126. 521 See Figaro Madame, 13–14 April 2012, suggesting the benefits of the “Ayurvedic school and its relaxation techniques.” 522 Id. 523 Id. 524 Cosmpolitan, May 2012. 525 See “L’espace Chenot à merino,” in Vogue, Hors-série Hommes, no 15, 2012. 526 GQ, Culture, Style, Opinions, Plaisirs, Enquêtes, Sport, April 2012, cover page. 527 See the series published from 1990–2000. 528 “Entretien avec Virginie Ledoyen,” Mods Marie Claire, March–April 2004. 529 Réponses psy, March 2004. 530 Votre beauté, March 2012, cover. 531 Mimoun, “Aimons notre corps tel qu’il est,” Marie Claire (French Edition). 532 Votre beauté, March 2012, cover. 533 Id. 534 Femina, Le Journal du dimanche, 5 March 2006.

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INDEX

19th century 64–8

“commonplace” nude images 99–105 communication and expression 132–3 composition 45 contour 60, 62–3, 74, 94–8, 107, 118 “correction” notion: female form 114; orthopedists 80 corsets 95–6, 106 creativity in graphic art 83–5 Cubism 118 cult psychology 142–8 culture: figure and 150; individualism 156 curiosity 64, 67, 70 curved figures 69–70, 137–41 cut out portraits 15

academic approach 78–80, 122 academies 22 adaptability 159 advertising 89, see also posters aesthetic practices 48–9, 54 American male form 115, 141 anatomy 31, 111 androgynous look 139 Andry de Bois-Regard, Nicolas 34 animal profiles 30–1, 162 “anthropomorphization” 71 anti-Semitism 131 arched form 96–7 art, silhouette as 15, 22–4, 161 “asthenic habitus” 120 authenticity 41–2 Balzac, Honoré de 66–7 beauty 119, 159 black contour 62, 98 black figure motif 54–5 black shadow 41, 103; accentuating 46; art and 161; impact of 17, 27; movement and 55, 57 black silhouettes 102–3 BMI see body mass index bodily contours: female form 109; male form 118 body conception 156–7 body mass index (BMI) 147, 153 body mastery/weakness 158–60 body parts 70–1, 73 body profiles 25, 30, 32–3, 89 books 58–9 bourgeoisie 75–6 Callot, Jacques 38–9 “cambrure” 76 Camper, Petrus 126–7 caricature 20–1, 75 character types 66–7 chest emphasis 74 choreography 83 classical painting 37–9 classifying 68–9, 122–5 clothing 30–1, 42, 81–2, 106, 146, 156, 163–4 color in silhouettes 26, 49, 62

dancing 76–7 Darwin, Charles 126–7 Daumier, Honoré 72–3, 77 decline theme 119–21 defects, female form 111 deformity 34, 39 delineation 85, 162 delineator 23 desolation 50–1 detail, quest for 41–4 dieting 153 differentiation: academic approach 78; body profiles 30, 32; morphology 41 “digestive” type 124–5 diversity 68, 73, 77 Doré, Gustave 54 dream world 50–1 dressmakers 111, 113 “economizing” forms 151–2 Édouart, Augustin 42–3, 45–6 “effigies” 27 engravers 31, 49, 56–7 the Enlightenment 30–5 entirety of depiction 40 erotic contour 94–8 “evolution” 126–8 expression realms 132–6 faces 25–8 facial features 62 “fascination” 150 fashion: female form 137; Romantic era 81–2 “fat” notion 74–5

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female form: contour 94–8, 118; fashion and 137; honing of 106–10; radical changes 151 figures 25–8, 150–2 “flapper” fashion 109–10, 137, 152 frames 23 French Revolution 64 “full-length” mirrors 100–1 “full-length” profile portraits 41–4 “gastric and intestinal collapse” 120 the gaze 43, 70 genre for silhouetting 43, 71, 86 gesture 84, 92–3 Gillray, James 32–3 girdles 113 Grandville, Jean-Jacques 69, 71, 73, 80 graphic artists 31, 83–5 grotesque images 39–40 gymnastic exercises 113–14 health 145 hips 97, 107 Hogarth, William 31–3 hominization process 127 “Hottentot” woman 129 iconography 59 “I” contour, female form 107 ideal models 142, 145 identity challenge 153–7 illusion 46–7 illustration: expression and 132; press 57–8 individualization 20, 23, 33, 39, 73, 142, 153–8, 160 infinity contemplation 50 information realms 132–6 instant photographs 92 instruments 23–4 “integrated whole” concept 35 “internalization” of silhouette 142 “inward-looking” quest 113 Jewish people 130–2 Lavater, Johann Kaspar 17–20, 25, 35 leisure activities 103–4 lengthening female form 107 Leonardo da Vinci 37, 39 line 14–16, 34–5, 38, 41, 60, 83–5, 87, 98, 163

linear style 69, 96, 99 lithography 57, 62 loins 97 machine-made silhouettes 17, 23 magazines 156, 159 male form: honing of 115–18; identity and 154; radical changes 151; treatment of 139, 141, see also men`s garments male profiles 77 malformations 119–20 Marey, Étienne-Jules 92 “masculine” identity 109–10 mastery of body 158–60 melancholic individuals 36–7 men`s garments 81, see also male... mirrors: male form 116; nude images 100–1 modesty 99–100 moral significance 60–3 morphology 162; classifying 122; diversity 41; emergence of 30–5; “invention” of 68–77 movement/motion 55–7, 59; female 96–7, 107; information and 134; male form 115; photography and 92–3 muscles 79, 113–14, 116, 139–41 “muscular” individuals 124–5 “museum”, 19th century 64–8 Muybridge, Eadweard 92–3 newspapers 58–9 norms 160 nude images 92–3, 99–105 observation 76 “obsession” 150 orthopedists 79–80 “outlining” fashion 81 painting 26, 49 pantograph 22 “paring down” process 94, 96 “pear” shaped silhouettes 74–5 perfection and reality 160 periodicals 64 personal imperative 111–14 personality types 78–9 personalization 18–19, 21, 24, 40, 156–9, 164 photography 24, 44, 48, 92–3 physical appearance 94–5, 158

physical difference 68, 71 physical forms 64–5 physical significance 60–3 physiognomy 17–19, 21–2, 25, 35, 67 physiognotrace machine 23 “physiologies” 66, 74–5, 78 polygraph 23 portraiture 19, 70 posters 86–90, 98, 132–5, 137 postures: male form 141; orthopedists 79; physiology 78 prejudices 129 press and image 54–9, 85–90, 134, see also magazines “primitive” races 128, 131 printmaking process 64 prints 30, 33, 65–6 private aspects, nude images 99 process expansion 54–9 profession, silhouetting as 22 profiles: animals 30–1, 162; bodies 25, 30, 32–3, 89; “full-length” portraits 41–4; male profiles 77; personalized 18–19, 21, 24 proportions 71 psychology emergence 142–8 public health 145

shaded form: art and 161; decline theme 121 shadow portraits 16–17, 25–8, 41, 45–8, see also black shadow shadow theatres 27, 46 shops 22 signs 134 silhouette: 19th century 64–8; definitions 62; early incarnations 36–40; history of word 163; impact of 136; invention of word 14–21; message of 164 Silhouette, Étienne de 14–16 silhouetting as art 22–4 simplicity 54, 84, 86–8 skeletons, “evolution” 127–8 slender contour 94–8 slender forms/slimness 151–2, 159 social groups 63 social “museum” 64–8 statistics 129 Stoecklin, Niklaus 134–5 “straightness” of form 137–8 “streamlined” slimness 152 “stylization” 84 “subtraction” process 87 swimsuits 104–5 systematic approach, linear depiction 69 “systems” 73

“race” 126–31 racism 132 radical changes, figure 150–2 realism 134 reality 46–7, 94–5, 160 “respiratory” category 124–5 respiratory system 74 Romantic themes 47–51, 54, 81–2

tailors 81 technology 115–16 tension 158 text: engravings 57; printed image and 65–6, see also words theatres 27, 39, 46 “tightening” slimness 152 “total” organism concept 34–5 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 88–9 tubular style 115

“saddleback” 120–1 Saint-Preux 20 sanguine individuals 36 satirical drawing 20, 150 scene–silhouette relationship 49 science and classification 122 scrutiny, nude images 100, 102 “S” curve 97, 107 self-evaluation 102 self-improvement 113 sensitivity 40 “serpentine line” 35

183

visibility 153 visualization 73 weakness of body 158–60 weight loss 145–6, 151 women: morphology 76–7; Romantic era 81; work 106, see also female... wood engravings 56–7 words 60–3, see also text work, women`s 106

I nde x

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

© ADAGP, Paris 2012: 97 (Leonetto Cappiello); 108 (Kees van Dongen); 117 (Lyonel Feininger); 135 (Niklaus Stoecklin); 138 (Robert Falcucci); 139 (JeanGabriel Domergue); 144 (Pierre-Laurent Brenot). AKG: 21, 29; © André Held: 32. Bibliothèque Forney, Paris: 133. Bibliothèque municipale, Lyon: 79. BnF, Paris: 22, 27, 34, 36, 60, 61, 62, 72, 81. Bridgeman: 82 above; © Charmet Archive: 6; © Bonhams. London: 47; © Collection of the New York Historical Society: 46; © Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College: 33; © Giraudon: 7. © CHANEL/photo Karl Lagerfeld: 155. Author’s Collection: 17, 19, 50, 82 below, 140, 147. Author’s Collection/ photos: Suzanne Nagy: 51, 52, 55, top left, 56, 57, 58, 64, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 76, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 102, 103, 104, 107, 112, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 128, 130. Private Collection: 20, 37, 38, 138. Private Collection/photos: Suzanne Nagy: 16, 26, 41, 42. Corbis / © Beyond: 157. ©DIOR/photo Karl Lagerfeld: 154. Getty Images: 96; © Hulton Archive: 148; © SSPL: 151. © SIC/VOTRE BEAUTE/Frédéric Farre: 162. Kharbine-tapabor: 55 bottom right, 75, 143, 144; © Galdoc. Coll.: 139; © Jonas Coll.: 80; © Perrin Coll.: 111, 115, 116. Leemage: © Aisa: 88; © Bianchetti: 97; © DeAgostini: 108; © Electa: 95; © FineArtImages: 50; © Gusman: 49; © Heritage Images: 31; © MP: 12; © Selva: 89; © SSPL: 90. Mary Evans Picture Library: 21, 43; © Tom Gillmor: 14. Minneapolis Institute of Arts: © The Minnich Collection, The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund, 1966: 32–33. © Mouron. Cassandre. Licence 2012-05-07-02. www.cassandre.fr: 134. RMN: Musée d’Orsay/rights reserved: 101; © Institut de France/Gérard Blot: 39; © Musée d’Orsay/Béatrice Hatala: 93; © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-GP/Bertrand Prévost: 117; © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN/ image of MMA: 8, 45, 70, 71. Rue des Archives: © BCA: 159; © FIA: 141; © PVDE: 129. Digital Image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence: 135.

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