Wayang Kulit

ワヤン・クリ（影絵芝居） / traditional–present / Style / Stage Design

Javanese shadow theater works pierced leather puppets between a lamp and a screen, and in doing so perfected a formal language of contour, silhouette and the stylized profile.

Wayang Kulit — Wayang kulit performance (CC BY-SA 4.0) · © FaizAttariqi
Wayang kulit performance (CC BY-SA 4.0) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © FaizAttariqi
Wayang Kulit — Wayang kulit puppet Raden Arjuna (Tropenmuseum, before 1914) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Wayang kulit puppet Raden Arjuna (Tropenmuseum, before 1914) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0

At a glance

Visual cues

  • Pierced leather puppets
  • Stylized profiles
  • Shadow and light source
  • All-night performances

Best used for

  • Stage or screen work that must narrate with a lamp and a sheet
  • Character design reducing figures to profiles that repeat as signs

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Dictionary entry

Type
Treat letters as pierced holes, read from the leather left behind
Composition
Profiles ranged left and right, the center kept open for confrontation
Material
Pierce the hide to pass light, vary shadow density by rod angle
Caution
Building the shadow as a plain black shape loses the information carried in the piercing, and nothing separates it from a cut-out silhouette.
Further study
The dalang's craft / adaptations of the Mahabharata / shadow play as animation's prehistory

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https://indexstyle.org/styles/wayang
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