Silhouette

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Georg Melchior Kraus : Goethe with silhouette, 1775/1776 (Goethe Museum, Frankfurt am Main).
Bernhard Albrecht Moll : Portrait of the Mother, Vienna 1783 ( Royal Ontario Museum , Toronto).
Chinese paper cutting
Propaganda in World War I : German Women in War Time (1916).
Folk art : the work of an anonymous cutter from Łowicz (Poland), around 1980.

The shear cut , and silhouette or black image called, is a Craft method (Psaligraphie) and at the same time the designation of its result. In this case, paper or other flat material by means of a scissors or special cut instruments (eg. B. for clippings) processed such that either the remaining outline or the cutouts or both a vivid picture shown the realistic or schematically ( ornaments ) can be. There are

  • the classic silhouette , named after the French finance minister and hobby shearer Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767), in which an unfolded sheet (or several stacked sheets) is cut up. These paper cuts are mostly black and are shown in front of a contrasting light background. If they are light, they are shown against a contrasting dark background.
  • the folding cut technique , in which a sheet of paper folded in half, quarter or even smaller parts is trimmed. After the processed paper template has been unfolded, a single or multiple axially symmetrical image results .

history

Paper cutting, originally native to northern China , is one of the oldest folk arts in China . After the turn of the century, it had lost its importance, as glass replaced the window paper to which paper cuttings were usually stuck. Each province has its specific style and color scheme.

In Germany, paper cutting was popular in the culture of the Goethe era and the 19th century. In northern Germany, the silhouetteur Johann Caspar Dilly has achieved special importance with a unique mixed technique of paper cutting and painting. Dilly's works show family tables, engagement and wedding couples, portraits of children as well as room and garden scenes and his silhouettes depict the living and clothing culture of the farming families and rural upper classes of north-west Germany between 1800 and 1840 "true to detail and with a clear profile".

Paul Konewka specializes in artistic paper cutting . An important representative of the art nouveau paper cutting is the illustrator Marcus Behmer , who also used his paper cutting as a template for ornamental designs. The German Scherenschnittverein e. V. is dedicated to the maintenance of this art and the archiving of artist biographies and work examples.

Even today, classic and modern paper cutouts have their circle of fans in the art scene. Well-known representatives of the modern age are the silhouette and paper artist Brigitte Prommegger-Weilguni, the Swiss paper cutter Adam Dario Keel and the Swiss Ernst Oppliger, who has dedicated himself to paper cutting for decades. In autumn 2007, Swiss Post issued four stamps with motifs by Swiss silhouette artists.

The bulletin "Schnittpunkt", published three times a year by the Swiss Association of Friends of Paper Cutting, regularly presents artists and their various techniques to a broader audience. In addition, the association regularly organizes exhibitions that document the work of its members.

The French-born Jacques Maté (actually Jacques Matéos; * 1937) is world champion as the fastest silhouette artist ( Guinness Book of Records 1982). In the 1980s he took part in many television shows and had prominent models such as Brandt and Kohl, most recently he still portrayed with scissors and paper at fairs and Christmas markets . For 2010 he had announced that he would sell his business at the end of the Dortmund Christmas market. After the sale, he and his wife moved from their previous residence in Düsseldorf to Warin in Mecklenburg .

The colorful Łowicz paper cuttings are cut in Poland .

Stand of the Düsseldorf world champion in paper cutting Jacques Maté, 2010
Scene from the silhouette animation film Dwarf Nose by Edeltraud Engelhardt

Paper cutting artist

Pancraz Körle: A young man cuts the silhouette of a lady (neo-baroque painting from 1857)

literature

  • Ernst Biesalski : silhouette and silhouette. Little history of silhouette art . Callwey, Munich 1964, OCLC 2475294 .
  • Ursula Kirchner, Otto Kirchner (Ed.): On the way, how and where? The motif of locomotion in the paper cut . August Dreesbach, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-940061-40-9
  • Naomi Feuchtwanger, Wilfried Knauer: Jewish silhouettes by Archie Granot (= publications of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum , volume 51). Braunschweiger Landesmuseum , Braunschweig 1988 DNB 891275738 .
  • Judith Steinheider: Silhouette and silhouette as a design tool for book illustration: history and bibliography (= context art - communication - cultural education , volume 11), Tectum, Marburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8288-3251-0 (dissertation University of Paderborn 2012, 311 Pages).
  • Julia Sedda: Reception of antiquities and Christian tradition in the silhouette work of Luise Duttenhofer (1776-1829) [1]
  • Julia Sedda: History of paper cutting . In: Schnittpunkt, magazine of the Swiss Scherenschnittverein, No. 61, No. 62, No. 63, 2017

Web links

Commons : Paper cutting  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the artist Ernst Oppliger. Retrieved May 29, 2017 .
  2. ^ Bulletin "Intersection". Swiss Association of Friends of Paper Cutting, accessed on May 29, 2017 .
  3. ↑ www.svz.de Ines Engelbrecht: Paper cutting artist Jacques Matéos - genius with surgical scissors is now Wariner . Schwerin December 23, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2017.