Silhouette

A silhouette is an image in which a subject appears as a solid shape against a contrasting background, usually without interior detail. Its outline carries the visual information.

Backlighting: Lighting that comes from behind a subject relative to the camera or viewer. A bright background and comparatively dark subject often create a silhouette.
Silhouette portrait: A portrait that represents a person's profile or figure as a dark shape against a light background. Portraiture is a long-standing use of silhouette's outline-based representation.
Étienne de Silhouette: A French finance minister whose surname became associated with inexpensive profile portraits in the eighteenth century. The image-making practice acquired its name from this minister's surname.
Line art: Images made primarily from distinct lines, often without broad areas of tone or color. Line art describes internal marks, while a silhouette suppresses them in favor of a filled shape.
Negative space: The unoccupied area around and between the forms in an image or design. The background shape helps define a silhouette's boundary and readability.
Shadow play: A performance art that uses light and shadows to create figures and scenes. Projected silhouettes let performers depict characters with minimal visual detail.
Shadow portrait: A profile likeness made by tracing or reproducing a person's shadow. Shadow portraits are an early form of the outline-based image now called a silhouette.
Tonal drawing: A drawing that represents form through gradations of light and dark. Tonal drawing models volume with shading that a simple silhouette omits.
Contour: The visible boundary that separates a form from its surroundings. A silhouette communicates mainly through the shape of its contour.
Cut-paper art: An art form that creates images by cutting shapes from paper. Cut-paper compositions often use sharply bounded silhouettes as their basic forms.

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