The art of pantomime is very ancient and is represented all around the world.
Amongst puppets, it is important to distinguish:
The ones facing the audience directly.
The ones whose shadows are cast on a screen by a lighting source (cut outs figures or shadowgraphs formed by the shadow of hands and fingers.)

Shadows then present two-dimensional profiles, although a third dimension appears with a blur between the hand of the manipulator and the screen if these hands are not against it: therefore, visual nuances are possible.

The technique of pantomime is very simple: the artist stretches a curtain facing the audience, takes his place behind it, and with the help of sticks, plays with transparent puppets. The viewers then sees colored moving shadows.

In Europe, characters are made out of cardboard or wood, sometimes out of zinc, and very often with articulated mechanisms.
In Asia, pantomime is a real art. Characters are polychromes and cut out in thin and translucent leather showing colors through the screen.
In France, pantomime was very active until the early XXth Century: children were offered miniature cut out figures and sets. Until 1896 at Montmartre's "Chat Noir" cabaret, one could be amazed by pantomime. With the help of very sophisticated machinery, puppeteers were able to superimpose as many as three layers of shadows and many colored filters, giving the shadows an infinite chromatic palette.