Towards the close of the last century the silhouette for a time was superseded by pastel portraits. However, it was not long before the art was again in favor, and practiced by numerous artists. The brush, which had heretofore been almost exclusively used, was now supplemented by the knife or scissors, resulting in the art of “Psaligraphy,” in which the portrait was either cut out of glossy black paper and then pasted on a white card, or the reverse, where the outline was cut with a knife from a sheet of white paper and then backed with a piece of silk, thus showing a black profile on a white ground. Specimens of the latter process are very rare, as it required an artist of no mean order for their execution.
Owing to the popularity of the silhouette it soon became elevated to the rank of meritorious art. Noteworthy among the exponents of this school we will mention the late Paul Konewka, Ströhl, and others, who produced effects of a surprising degree of naturalness in solid black. Half a century ago silhouettes of prominent persons, actors, danseuses, soldiers, orators, etc., were as common an article of commerce as the photograph of a professional beauty is at the present day.
The advent of photography eventually proved the death blow to the silhouette, as a picture with all the detail and expression was far preferable to the simple profile. Yet at first, in many cases, on account of poor posing or defective lighting, the photograph showed less similarity to the sitter than the well-executed silhouette. At the present day, with the great advances in the photographic art, all necessity for the silhouette has ceased to exist, nor is there any special reason why that style of portraiture should be made by use of the camera, except as a pastime. Yet, strange to say, this subject has excited so much attention in Europe that it was made the special order of business at the April meeting of the Photographische Gesellschaft, in Vienna, where Herr Eisele, a prominent member, stated that he had experimented for the last two years in producing photographic silhouettes. Professor Luckhart and the artist Herr Schuer had also devoted much time to the subject without, however, succeeding as well as the first speaker.
The details of Herr Eisele’s experiments certainly make interesting reading for us on this side of the water. He states that at first he covered a frame with tracing paper, then placed his principal between the sun and the screen, thus throwing a shadow on the paper. The camera was set up on the other side, so as to photograph this shadow, the lens, of course, pointed direct to the sun. He then made the attempt to shade the lens with an umbrella. He neglects to state how often he got the outline of the parapluie on his plate. Then he tried Blitz-pulver--sitter, camera, and screen in same position. Result as might have been foretold--a miserable failure.
Next the screen was placed in a doorway with a bright light back of the screen. The subject was placed in front of the screen, the room darkened, the camera being placed in front of the sitter and screen. A Blitz-lamp exposure of five to six seconds was then made. Result--not a single specimen that equals our old silhouette. So much for our Viennese photographic cousins. In these great United States we simply tack a piece of muslin in front of a window, place the subject directly in front, shut off all other light in the room, focus, fire, and develop. Result--a good sharp profile almost all the time.
Julius F. Sachse.
SOME FURTHER DETAILS ABOUT PRINTS.
The drying of a photographic print after the final washings have been completed is a simple enough matter, and yet it is possible for the most exasperating failures to occur at this stage of the process; the disappointment experienced being all the more keen because the work is in a certain sense finished.
Those unacquainted with photographic neatnesses might easily imagine that all that was necessary was to take the print out of the water, and lay it aside in any convenient place to dry. They would soon find out, however, that if the substance with which the wet print came into contact were capable of communicating any impurity, the print would be sure to show in the form of stains. For instance, suppose that the prints were hung over wooden poles, or laid on wooden shelves while still wet, there would hardly be a possibility of escape from stains. This would be true in the case either of silver prints of any kind, bromides, or blue prints.
Silver prints on plain paper and blue prints are more manageable in drying than the other forms which are made on papers prepared with a contractile substance like gelatine or albumen. Supposing that the wooden poles or shelves before spoken of were covered with clean white linen or blotting paper, all those forms of prints having a plain surface might safely be dried there, but an albumen paper print would not do so well; if laid out flat on the shelf it would contract unequally, and be so crinkled and shrunken that there would be serious difficulty in trimming. Drying over the pole would be preferable, but the albumenized surface would be put on the stretch unequally, so that in the case of a highly glazed surface there would be fissures and cracks very detrimental to the finished result.