Silhouettes

A tradition with a new lease of life

Paper and scissors were the simple tools to create artistic pictures in Europe for about 400 hundred years. Black-and-white depictions of herds going up to mountain pastures are regarded as typically Swiss, and in Switzerland hundreds of artists make silhouettes a lively art form to which Swiss Post dedicated four special postage stamps. These postage stamps were issued in Switzerland on 13 November 2007.

Silhouette portraits came into fashion

The oldest silhouettes that have been preserved were made in Germany roughly four hundred years ago. The technique, which came to Europe from China, spread in different social classes. Nuns in convents cut out delicate lacework from white paper and used it to frame paintings of the saints. Educated ladies in secular life used this technique also, and in middle-class homes, women spent many a pleasant evening making paper cut-outs.
Black silhouette portraits came into fashion in the 18th century, and even Johann Wolfgang von Goethe immortalized his friends in this way. Today, there are still experts who can snip out the silhouette of a sitter at lightning speed.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, famous Geneva silhouette artists developed the technique into a fine art. And in the 20th century, Henri Matisse was probably the most famous artist to reach for paper and scissors.

Jakob Hauswirth

Like many other cultural currents, the art of making silhouettes gradually spread from town to country and from the upper to the lower classes. Amateur artists, for instance, created pictures as mementos or dedications, combining silhouettes, calligraphy and painting to make christening or wedding gifts, or as love letters. Nobody could rival the skill of Jakob Hauswirth, a casual laborer from the Pays-d'Enhaut, who "invented" the motif of the herdsman's ascent to summer pastures and liked to pay for his board or lodgings with one of his silhouettes depicting mountain life. These silhouette works of Jakob Hauswirth are now eagerly sought-after collector's items.

Silhouettes today

There has never been such a variety of silhouettes as today, ranging from the traditional ascents to summer pastures through Art Nouveau designs to abstract ones, and from caricatures to political motifs. Often, symmetry and delicate filigree work are abandoned in favor of geometrical shapes and the occasional spot of color. Artists are constantly trying out something new, using their exuberant imagination and ingenuity to experiment with different shapes and maximize impact. In the old days, people had to make do with clumsy scissors, but now special sharp scissors with fine points are available. Many artists use a craft knife or scalpel and then call their work paper-cuts. Silhouettes are cut from open sheets of paper, sometimes in up to four layers, or from folded paper, thus obtaining the typical symmetrical patterns.

Postage stamps in detail

Issue: Switzerland, 13 November 2007
Designers: Christian Schwizgebel, Christiane and Jacqueline Saugy
Print: Offset by Tesa Bandfix in Bergdietikon
Sizes: 32.5 x 40 mm
Perforation: Serpentine cut

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