The Ambivalence of Ornament: Silhouette Advertisements in Print and Film in Early Twentieth‐Century Germany

Although rarely seen in advertising today, the silhouette was a thriving form of advertising design in early twentieth-century Germany. While Lotte Reiniger's silhouette advertising films are still familiar to film historians, much less is known about the broader culture of silhouette desing in both print and film advertisements of the early twentieth-century. This essay examines the genealogy of silhouette illustration to show how it emerged in early twentieth-century Germany as a key medium both for the eleboration of advertising design and -particulary after 1918- for the negotiation of a space for women artist within the applied arts.