Shadowgraphy

Also called ombromanie, the art of performing a story or show using images cast by hand shadows, sometimes described as cinema in silhouette, with its practitioners known as shadowgraphists or shadowgraphers. The form was popularized in its modern shape by the French entertainer Felicien Trewey in the nineteenth century, who created recognizable silhouettes of famous people, but declined from the late nineteenth century onward as electric lighting, which produces weaker shadows than candlelight, replaced candles in homes and as cinema and television offered competing entertainment.