Silhouette
Jared Carter
One
Not that it matters now, but Silhouette himself
was not an artist, as most people seem to think –
not the first to draw the human face from the side,
not the first to cut profiles from black paper.
He was instead Controller-General of France, not long
before the Revolution. He proposed stringent measures
to save the troubled economy. Because he wished
to tax the nobles and their lands, he was despised.
Royalists bitterly opposed the unfortunate minister.
Thousands of cartoons were launched against him
“Silhouette” became vernacular for a figure reduced
to its simplest form. He died disgraced and forgotten.
Still, on the eve of the Bastille, silhouettes had replaced
miniature paintings at the French and German courts.
Their popularity kept pace with physiognomy
and phrenology. They were eclipsed by photographs.
Two
At a crafts fair, I talk with a woman who calls them
“shadow miniatures.” She can cut your profile out
while you wait, in five minutes, for five dollars.
“There are three ways to do it,” she says. “First,
you can sketch the profile, and trace the outline
onto black paper. Second, with special equipment,
you can project the outline. And finally, after
a few years, you simply learn to do it freehand.”
Carefully, with tiny silver scissors, she snips
while she talks, glancing up repeatedly, making
something out of nothing. The dross trails away –
the dark halo from which my features emerge.
But which is figure, which is ground? Does life
contain art, or art life? While she works, I watch
the lengthening strip, and recall my grandmother,
born thirteen years after the Civil War – see her
carving a yellow apple so the peel drops down
in one long piece, like a coiled spring extending.
Watch her dangle it before the grizzled tomcat,
saying, “Heavy, heavy, hangs over thy head,”
until the cat, strangely roused, snatches the peel
like any mouse, and tears it to shreds – a fury
reminiscent of that frenzy which Silhouette,
who died before the Terror, did not live to see.
Three
The cutting finished, for another five bucks
she mats and mounts it in a clear plastic frame.
Guests never know it is me. If they ask, I explain
c’est Monsieur Silhouette, artiste et bon vivant.
Mais oui, they say, those were the days – the Left Bank,
the Boul’ Mich, the Luxembourg, stacking saucers
on the table in front of you. Silhouette, d’accord –
we saw his work last year at the Jeu de Paume.