Georges Vigarello's 'La silhouette' traces the cultural history of the silhouette from the 18th century to Bridget Jones

Georges Vigarello's book 'La silhouette, du 18e siècle à nos jours' (published by Seuil) examines the cultural and historical evolution of the silhouette. The study is structured chronologically across thirty points, beginning with the origin of the word 'silhouette' from Étienne de Silhouette, who served as Louis XV's finance minister from March to November 1759, and who decorated his home with cut-out portraits made from facial shadows. The narrative extends to contemporary references like Bridget Jones's diary and its weight obsessions. Vigarello argues that the invention of the silhouette marks a specific moment in Western culture where the individualization of appearance became subject to investigation, and the body emerged as that of a subject. The book also explores technical aspects, linking the silhouette—a scissor-cut profile that soon became a profession (the 'silhouetteur') using devices like pantographs, prosopographs, and physionotraces—to the mechanization of portraiture through photography, evident in the work of Marey and Muybridge. Scientifically, Vigarello identifies a shift in ways of seeing, where subjective observation continues in naturalism and cutting in classification. The reviewer, Christophe Kihm, notes that the study, while fascinating and drawing on arts and fashion, omits the significant figure of Jacques Tati, who through his character Hulot constructed worlds of lines and surfaces.